


Come Round Full Circle

by kaesaria



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Communication Failure, Complicated Relationships, Consent Issues, Dark, Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Fuck Or Die, Guilt, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Mental Coercion, Mental Instability, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Pining, Sexual Violence, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Violence, hydra makes them do it, seriously--all kinds of awfulness that just goes on and on omg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaesaria/pseuds/kaesaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stark's not a real handler, but <strike>the Asset</strike> Bucky finds it useful to think of him as one.<br/>_____<br/>Written in response to a prompt on the trashmeme: "The Winter Soldier (and later Bucky) needs regular fucking to keep his functionality and memories."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Хождение по Кругу | Come Round Full Circle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11465394) by Anonymous 



> **Please heed the warnings and tags.** Don't read this if hydratrash, violence, dubcon, characters put into awful, impossible situations, descriptions of past rape/non-con, etc. are not your thing. And even for those of you okay with reading darkfic and all that—this thing starts out bad, then gets awful, then gets _worse_. Seriously folks, read at your own risk. 
> 
> A huge, resounding THANK YOU to [Neery](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Neery/), [MilesHibernus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/), [thefilthiestpiglet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thefilthiestpiglet/) and [Tipsy_Kitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/) for the amazing beta reads. You guys are absolutely wonderful and this would not be anywhere close to where it is without all your awesome, insightful comments and ideas and reassurance and comma-wrangling and everything else. Also, a big shout out to my fellow trashkittens at the hydratrashmeme for the discussions and cheerleading as I've been working on this monster!
> 
> **_Prompt:_ **
> 
> _The Winter Soldier was never designed to be out of cryo for too long, and HYDRA assumed that would only happen if a) he was captured by another group or b) if he went rogue. Since neither of those are acceptable, they built in a "kill switch" where his memories scramble, his working memory becomes insanely short and he even starts to forget combat skills - rendering him useless as a weapon, and leaving him a shell of a man. Since they're sadistic fucks, the way to reset this kill switch is to fuck him. When on a mission there would always be some agents available to do that anyway. To make it spicier: the frequency in which he needs to be fucked increases the longer he is out of cryo._
> 
> _So, Bucky makes it back to the Avengers - but he's faced with an awful choice: going into cryo regularly (he hated that, and the machines might have been destroyed), allow his new-found memories to be fried again, or to get regular rape. He chooses the latter as his "lesser evil", but given his trauma he might have underestimated the impact. Give me all the badwrong sex of Bucky being fucked because he has to, while he still has rape trauma._

The thing is: Stark’s eyes are incredibly big. They're almost too much for his face, almost to the point of looking abnormal—but he manages to pull them off, somehow.

Mostly by keeping them hidden, Bucky recognizes, now that he thinks about it.  Stark does it on purpose:  he shields his eyes behind smirks and leers and ridiculous sunglasses worn incongruously indoors, or keeps them narrowed or squinted or aimed away under some dramatic, exaggerated expression.

Bucky can’t help comparing:  it’s the exact opposite of how _Steve_ is.  

Steve holds himself open, inviting, honest and unadulterated.  He practically radiates irrepressible, natural charisma.  And precisely because he does nothing to enhance it (he doesn’t need to, want to, wouldn’t know how to), everything about Steve draws the gaze to the details:  the piercing blue eyes, the perfect blond hair, the shape of the musculature under his combat suit.  The innate magnetism that emanates from his body: _believe in me_ and _follow me_ and _adore me_.

And so everyone does.

In contrast, Stark’s whole body is artificially flashy—his clothes, his gestures, his swagger.  It’s all calculated, engineered, to create a big, showy picture that distracts from the details:  his wary look, the strain around his mouth, the way his hands shake, sometimes, for no reason.

So, Bucky’s nothing if not observant, but even he doesn’t notice those (large, disturbingly expressive) eyes, not really, until after the fifth or sixth time Stark fucks him.

The thing is:  Stark mostly keeps his eyes shut when he’s fucking Bucky.  

He’ll slit them open now and again to squint down, to make sure Bucky’s not writhing in agony, or frozen in another horrible post-traumatic flashback, or something—but Stark always closes his eyes again or looks away, quickly, as soon he’s assured himself that Bucky is clear and present and fucking him back in an appropriately participatory fashion.

At first, Bucky’s not as careful, himself, about avoiding eye-contact.  For the simple purpose of moving things along, Bucky generally keeps his gaze on Stark’s face whenever they’re in a position that allows it.  

He knows, from experience, that it’s helpful to track visual cues during a session so that he can judge if the person fucking him is getting close, or if the guy needs a little extra encouragement, or whatever.  That way, Bucky knows exactly when to flex or clench or grind down—or even when to just speed his hand up on his own cock, if that’s required—to bring the proceedings to a successful and satisfactory end for all involved.   _Accomplish mission goals within acceptable time parameters_ , he thinks.

Anyway, Stark mostly keeps his eyes closed or averted, but that’s completely extraneous to the objectives at hand, so Bucky doesn’t really give it much thought.

So, it’s not during the actual fucking that Bucky really _sees_ Stark’s uncanny eyes for the first time:

It’s after, when Stark is sitting up in the middle of the wide, too-soft bed with the too-white sheets—imported, 1500-count Egyptian cotton and changed every night for optimal comfort, whether Stark sleeps on them or not.  Stark has his knees drawn up, his arms draped over them, shoulders hunched, and his head hanging as he pants a little, still recovering from his orgasm.  

Bucky watches him for a long moment from his own position, unmoving, lying on his back.  He’d gotten turned around at some point—some change in direction or angle or intensity of thrust had caused tonight’s session to end with Bucky’s head to the foot of the bed and his feet up by the pillows.  The position is as adequate as any other, so Bucky stays there for a while, motionless, waiting for his own heartbeat to come down to a baseline normal rate.

He shifts his gaze, idly, up to the high ceiling of the penthouse master suite.  Bucky thinks about his schedule for tomorrow—therapy in the morning (mandatory, futile, pointless), lunch with Natasha, a workout, he needs to do his laundry at some point, and—dinner with Steve.  He feels himself smile, a little, for the first time since he climbed onto Stark’s bed tonight.

Bucky’s body tends to automatically fall into a state of complete stillness when he’s resting, or whenever he’s not consciously _trying_ to avoid being motionless ( _It’s fucking creepy_ , Clint had said once).  It’s a sniper’s trick, and a defense mechanism:  it’s never a good idea to attract attention when he doesn’t need it.

So, when Bucky shifts, finally, wincing at the squelchy feel of Stark’s come leaking out of him and onto the now-crumpled sheets, the sudden movement catches Stark by surprise.  Stark looks up, reflexively, his expression open and unguarded for just a second.  And that’s when Bucky first really notices them:  Stark’s eyes, wide and brown and ridiculously, almost incompatibly huge against the backdrop of his strained, tired-looking face.

Stark shifts his gaze away again, almost immediately, but not quite quickly enough—

Bucky _sees_ , he understands, now, why Stark keeps his eyes hidden:  they give far too much away, otherwise.

~

After that, Bucky tries to help Stark out—he keeps his own gaze averted as much as possible during their sessions.  He tries to maneuver them into positions where eye lines are unlikely to meet inadvertently.

Bucky doesn’t mind.  It’s immaterial, what position he’s in while he’s getting fucked.  

The only mission-pertinent factors are:  the tell-tale stiffening of Stark’s body, right before the end; the last, thickening twitch of the cock inside him, stretching Bucky’s rim just a little more; the feel of hot come coating his insides; and, most importantly, the rush of relief that floods into Bucky’s head at the same time as Stark’s come pulses into his body—that final, visceral assurance that he can keep his mind, for a little while longer, at least.

~

The thing is:  Bucky’s got no particular need to look into Stark’s eyes while the man is fucking him. There’s nothing new or significant or mission-relevant there.

Bucky sees the same cagey, haunted, _raw_ gaze staring back at him every time he looks in a mirror, himself.

 

* * *

 

It starts like this:  Bucky is in the middle of a fight, his body tense and alert, shots whizzing and cars crashing and civilians screaming all around him.  

He’s engaged with a group of hostiles at the edge of their defensive line, Steve to his left and the brick front of a building to his right, the rest of the ground team spread all around and Stark flying overhead, watching their perimeter and taking out stragglers.  

Bucky’s drawing back his left arm—the weapon—about to land a killing blow on the target’s face when, abruptly, joltingly:  time… _falters_ , stutters, skips forward in a crazy way—and Bucky suddenly finds himself face down on the asphalt.  He feels the wrenching pain at his shoulder where his arm is being twisted back.  He feels the hot metal barrel of a handgun being shoved against his temple.

It only takes him a few seconds to extricate himself, to put down the three men that had been pinning him and to take out the other two that had been leveling their guns at him, guarding, nervously, from a few steps away.  He’s already on his feet by the time Steve fights his way over, worried blue eyes running quickly down Bucky’s body, checking for injuries, a big hand landing briefly on Bucky’s shoulder—the flesh one—and squeezing there, warm and reassuring.

Bucky swallows, resists the urge to push into the touch.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, gasping a little.  “What happened?”  But his eyes are already sliding away, taking in the rest of the battlefield, checking the positions and statuses of every member of his team, his mind already focused on analyzing and restructuring their plan of attack.

So Bucky just shapes his lips into a grin, shoves the nagging panic aside— _irrelevant, not pertinent to mission parameters_ —and pulls away from Steve to rejoin the fight.  

When he happens to glance up, a second later, his gaze catches on the glowing visors of Stark’s faceplate.

They’re focused on Bucky, piercing:  like lasers, like drills.

 

* * *

 

It starts like this:  Bucky is in the gym, near the lockers, his body loose and exhausted, the familiar sounds of people lifting weights or sparring or taunting each other playfully echoing through the space around him.  Bucky’s running a towel over his sweaty face and neck, watching, idly, as Sam gets his ass handed to him by Clint on the sparring mat.  Natasha and Stark are watching too:  Natasha, silent and assessing, and Stark, prattling on nonstop, providing full running commentary.

Most of Bucky’s mind is focused on tonight.  He’s kind of nervous-excited about going out to dinner with Steve.  He’d made a big deal about this new Japanese place— _sushi, Bucky, it’s amazing stuff, you gotta try it, food’s just so much better now._  Bucky’s thinking he might wear those new jeans Natasha had picked out for him, dark-washed and soft as sin.   _They’re sexy_ , she’d said, with a wink, _they highlight your ass_ , and Bucky had laughed and forked over an unbelievable amount of cash, mainly so he could bask in Natasha’s smile for a little while longer.

He’s just about to head over to the showers when the match finishes up and the whole group starts heading toward the lockers, toward Bucky.  They’re all laughing and joking around, high on post-workout endorphins.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Clint is saying, shoving at Sam, “you and your butt can have the floor all to yourself.  I’m taking _my_ sexy ass to dinner, I’m starving.”  Clint whirls to continue, without missing a beat, “And will the lady accompany me?”  He sweeps a dramatic, flourishing bow at Natasha.  She just rolls her eyes a little then plays along, extending daintily flexed fingers for Clint to kiss.

“We’ll all go,” Stark announces, imperiously, then turns to aim a considering look at Bucky, “You coming, Barnes?”

“No, I’ve got dinner with—.”  Bucky stops abruptly, blinks.  

At that exact moment, for no apparent reason, Clint grabs Natasha around the waist and sweeps her up into the air.  She shouts and slaps at his shoulders, laughing, and they knock into Sam and cause some yelping and jostling that, thankfully, mercifully, covers the next few seconds—covers the awful, jittery blankness in Bucky’s mind.  

He thinks, desperately:   _blue eyes._ He thinks:   _a shield with a star to match my arm_.  He thinks:   _to the end of the line_.  

But—

There’s no _name_ to go with the image.  Just a horrible, empty void where that most, _most_ mission-pertinent detail should reside.

Bucky panics, silently, frantically, for a few seconds, while Stark watches him with a fixed gaze, the only one to notice—the only one who ever notices.

Then, suddenly, there’s a buzz coming from Bucky’s pocket and he reaches in with numb fingers, pulls out his phone.  There’s a text message flashing across the screen that reads:   _What time are we meeting?_  

It’s from—Steve.   _Steve._

 

* * *

 

It starts like this:  Bucky is in his room, sitting stiffly on the bed.  His body is tight with fear, tense with dread.  The chilled, conditioned air of the room seems to press down on him, heavy and freezing, like an ice sheet.

Bucky knows what this is. He can’t ignore it any longer—he can’t pretend it away.

_Rough hands, pushing him down and back:  into the cold, into the dark.  The Asset can’t shove them away.  He can’t fight back, he can’t run.  It’s not allowed._

Bucky remembers this feeling, the horrible stuttering of time and the hollow, wispy feeling in his head:  moments when thoughts and delicate memories float in front of his eyes, _so close_ , only to slide through his fingers every time he tries, desperately, to grasp them.  He remembers how—how the _fear_ seeps into his mind, slimy and suffocating, as soon as the memories flow out.

_“It almost got away,” a voice says, high and nervous, cowering, “There was a problem, a glitch in the programming.  We’re trying to fix it now.”_

_The Asset is naked, strapped to the chair, thick restraints against his ankles, his thighs, his arms, his chest: they hold him immobile, open and exposed.  The air crackles with electricity, with pain.  He’s surrounded by circuits and wires. They encircle him, tangle around him and into him.  He can’t scream against the rubbery thing his mouth:  it presses against his teeth, shoves against his tongue._

_“We can’t take the risk—it’s too valuable.”  Another voice, cold and commanding.  “Put in a failsafe—an automatic wipe to cover all contingencies.  We can’t allow our enemies get their hands on it intact.”_

Bucky draws in a breath, slow. Tries to focus on the now, the real.  He tries to focus on finding a fix, a debug, a bypass to this breakdown.

His mind goes to Steve, immediately:  Steve will help him—Steve is always there, ready, willing, when Bucky needs him.  Steve will think of something, know someone, come up with a solution.  

Bucky relaxes a little, thinks about Steve’s strength, his easy affection.  He thinks about how Steve’s eyes light up sometimes, open and unguarded—in gladness, in relief—when they land on Bucky, unawares.

But then—Bucky thinks about how those same eyes will widen in horror, how Steve’s face will twist in anguish, in disgust, when Bucky tells him—when he explains.  He thinks about how Steve will never look at him the same.  

Bucky presses his hands against the sides of his head.  For a while, he’s not sure what he’s trying to hold in, what he’s trying to push out.

_Rough hands, pushing him down and back:  his legs yanked apart, shoved up, then pain—burning, tearing, it goes on and on.  The Asset clenches his eyes shut, scrabbles his fingers against the cold, unyielding surface of the metal table under him.  He can’t struggle, he can’t cry.  It’s not allowed._

_“Christ, seventy years of fucks and he’s still tight as virgin,” a voice grunts from above him, close to his ear—but the words aren’t aimed at the Asset._ Not mission-relevant _, he thinks, breathing carefully through his nose.  More pain and the slick, unpleasant pressure of a body sweating, sliding against his skin, and then harsh laughing.  “Thank God for the twisted fuckers that thought up this reboot routine, huh?  Gotta hand it the sadistic old SOBs—they sure as fuck knew how to squeeze some fun out of a thing.”_

_A beat, more thrusting, more grunting. “It was probably the war mentality, you know?”_

_“Shut up waxing poetic and hurry the fuck up.”  A different voice, from his left.  “My shift’s almost over, and I need to get my dick in that thing before I leave tonight.  They’re shipping me overseas tomorrow—fuck, I’m probably not going to get any for weeks.”_

_The sound of a belt unbuckling, a presence near his head, a rough hand on his jaw.  “Shove over, I don’t have time for your slow ass to finish—I’m gonna do its mouth.”_

_The Asset tilts his head back, aligns the channel of his throat.  He opens his mouth, obedient._

The sickening realization seeps into Bucky’s gut, runs with ice-cold clarity through his veins:  this _isn’t_ a malfunction.  There is no remedy to this, no fix.  

He drops his head, gasps, as the dread threatens to suffocate him.  He’d thought it was over, he’d thought he was finally free, but—but they’ve caught him again, he was theirs all along, freedom was an illusion, a fever dream, as usual, as _always_ , and he was so pathetic, so _stupid_ , to think that he could keep his memories, keep _anything_ , that he could build a life—

But, then a new thought slithers in past his panic:

If the Asset isn’t malfunctioning, he doesn’t need a fix.  He needs… routine maintenance.  Someone to reset the switch.

Bucky looks up:  blinks.  He needs—a mechanic.

 _Target acquired_ , he thinks.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Stark fucks him, it’s awkward and awful, but they get through it.

Stark’s suite is expansive, huge:  a masterful room for the master of the Tower.  Everything is harsh lines, glossy finishes and sharp edges; all of it showy and expensive and impractical—like everything else about Stark.  The entire space is expertly designed to impress, to draw the eye to the wide, low bed centered along the wall opposite the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the city.  

The vastness of the room makes Bucky uneasy, at first—too many sightlines, too exposed in all directions.  He has to take in a few slow breaths, force himself to relax.

After holding the door open for Bucky, Stark ignores him.  He brushes past him, past the bed and heads straight to the decanter that’s sitting on the table near the windows.  He pours himself a drink and swallows it down in one go, then pours himself another before finally turning.  He lifts his eyebrows and his glass toward Bucky, in query.

Bucky shakes his head:  he doesn’t need alcohol.

Stark shrugs.  _Suit yourself_.  He takes another sip.  He turns away, looks out the windows, contemplative, unhurried.

Bucky eyes the bed, waits for Stark to finish.  He wishes they could get on with it.  He wishes it were over already.

By the time Stark finally turns back toward him, Bucky has tensed up again, despite himself.  He’s edgy with nerves, with anticipation.  He hasn’t been fucked since he got out, since he found the Avengers—found _Steve_.  He hasn’t had any real desire for it:  he’s already had a lifetime’s fill of getting fucked.  More than one.  

Though, sometimes, with Steve, he’d thought… maybe, someday.  But—

That’s not a possibility anymore, if it ever was one.  Bucky shuts down that line of thinking.   _Irrelevant_ , he thinks.  _Counterproductive_.

He refocuses on the mission at hand.  Stark is watching him now, his eyes dark and unreadable.  He’s finished his second drink, finally.  

Stark looks… expectant, Bucky decides.  Time to proceed.

“How do you want me?” he asks, glancing toward the bed again, reflexively, nervously.  He wonders if Stark will allow Bucky in his bed.  Thinks, yes, probably, since Stark brought him here.  But sometimes handlers were finicky about fucking him where they slept.  He’ll know soon enough, it’s dangerous to anticipate—

He sees Stark pull back, a little, at his words.  He watches as Stark puts out a hand to brace himself on the table behind him.  Bucky wonders if he’s somehow managed to get himself too drunk to go on already—but Stark recovers, quickly.

“Straight to the point, huh?” he says, his tone dry and heavy with—something.  “Where’s the romance, Barnes?”

Bucky freezes.  Is that a request?  An instruction?   _Clarification needed_ , he thinks.  He almost says the words out loud—feels himself falling into the old behavior patterns:  a defense mechanism.

Stark must notice his unease because he takes pity.  He holds up a hand, placating.

“Relax, Barnes, I’m just trying to lighten the depressingly unsexy mood here,” Stark says.  Then he sighs and slides a palm over his face before straightening, squaring his shoulders.  “Okay, fine, let’s get this thing done.”

Bucky is… relieved, he decides.  Ready.  

He lowers his head a little, drops his gaze, makes himself look as receptive and appealing as possible—the old posture—and waits for direction, instruction.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he hears Stark say, under his breath; then, more loudly, “Barnes, work with me here.  What are the… what are the parameters for this thing?”

Bucky blinks, surprised—no one has ever asked him this before.  Handlers always just… knew what was allowed, what wasn’t.  He has to think about how to answer.  It’s… difficult; this is a cross-section of his memories—of the Asset’s memories—that Bucky tries to compartmentalize.  To keep locked away.  He doesn’t want to open that cage, and he feels a surge of irrational irritation at Stark for making him.  But—

It makes sense:  Stark’s not a real handler, after all, no matter how much simpler it is to think of him as one.

“There are… no real limits on use,” Bucky starts, slowly, thinking as he talks.  “You can use my hand, my tongue, my cock… any orifice, obviously.  As for fucking, I know all the usual positions, and a lot of less usual ones—I can provide suggestions if you want.”

Bucky shifts his gaze to the cityscape past Stark’s shoulder.  He tries to keep his mind floating, skimming only at the surface of the Asset’s memories—like a butterfly, like a leaf.  It’s dangerous to delve too deep.

“You can… urinate on me, things like that,” he says.  “If you’re into pain, you can hit me, cane me, whip me, whatever.  I can cry or beg if that’s what you like, or I can stay silent through almost anything.”  

He swallows, takes a breath.  “Toys were a popular idea, or fisting, object insertion… I can take a lot.  The only real limit is doing any permanent or lasting damage that would affect my performance in the field.”  

Stark doesn’t say anything.  From the edge of his vision, Bucky can see that Stark has shifted, braced himself on the table behind him again.  Bucky squints a little, tries to think what he’s missed.

“Leaving permanent but non-debilitating marks is okay,” he says.  “It’s not easy to get past the accelerated healing, but it’s doable… it’s been done.  I can show you how.  Though—” he stops, glances at Stark for a second, decides to risk it:  “As a personal request, I’d ask that you don’t leave any visible scars.  On my face, that kind of thing.”

Stark is still pressed back against the table.  His expression is rigid:  like marble, like ice.

 _“That’s_ where you draw the line, huh?” he says, hoarsely, after a second.  “Any other... _restrictions_ I should hear about?”  Stark’s voice rises at the end, sharp with—incredulity? Disbelief?  

Bucky shifts his gaze back to the window, looks out over the shimmering lights that spread into the distance before him.  It figures Stark would be into pain, that he’d like leaving marks.  Stark’s brand is stamped on everything he touches, after all:  all over the city, all over the world.

 _Irrelevant_ , Bucky thinks.  The Asset can take it, has taken it.

“It’s—it’s just a request.  It’s completely up to you, of course,” he says, dully, already wondering how he’s going to explain new scars to the team… to _Steve_.  He’ll figure something out.  Stark will probably have some ideas.  “Though, if you—” Bucky starts again, but—

“Jesus, _fuck_ ,” Stark interjects, sounding choked, “that’s not—that’s not what I meant—”  

Bucky looks at him.

Stark turns, gracelessly, pours himself another drink—his third of the night that Bucky has seen.  He wonders if Stark is the type that mellows out with alcohol, or the type that gets mean.  

This is what he hates most about new handlers:  too many unknowns, too many holes in his knowledge for anticipation, for fear, to bleed in.  

“Okay, you know what, just go ahead,” Stark says, after a moment.  “Finish what you were going to say.  I might as well hear it all now, so I _never_ have to hear it again.”  He stays facing the window, leaning on his arms over the table, elbows locked, his back to the room.  The position makes the muscles of Stark’s shoulders and biceps flex, to stand out through the thin fabric of his shirt.  Stark is a fighter, too, Bucky remembers.  It won’t be difficult for him to inflict pain with those muscles, those arms.

Stark had issued a directive.  Bucky tries to remember what the hell he was talking about.  He wishes this part was over, that they could get to the fucking already.

“I was just going to suggest, since—” Bucky pauses:   _don’t anticipate_ , he thinks.  He focuses on keeping his voice steady, clear.  “If you’re into more intense kinds of pain, I suggest you restrain me, at first.  At least until I’m reconditioned.”  Bucky wonders if Stark has a predilection for shock sticks, like his last handler.  Thinks yes, probably.  Stark likes his toys, likes voltage, likes sparks.  “I’m out of practice,” he explains.  “I might have trouble holding still on my own, at first.  It could be a safety issue—for you.”  

Bucky glances up, but Stark is still turned away.

“Though, obviously, you can always keep using restraints, if that’s what you like,” he goes on, quickly, nervously assuring, “I’ve got some that will hold me, even if I really struggle.”

He tries to remember where he’d put the reinforced cuffs that the medical staff had given him, at his request, back when he was still newly out of Hydra’s hands.  When the wrenching, flailing nightmares he’d had every night meant waking up to bruises, smashed objects strewn all around his bed.  Those cuffs would probably work in the short run.  At least until Stark came up with something else, something… customized to his needs.

Stark still hasn’t moved, hasn’t turned.  His head is low and his hands are pressed, bloodless, against the glossy surface of the table in front of him.  Bucky can see the muscles of his back and shoulders bunching, shifting, twitching with some barely suppressed sentiment.  

Probably anger, Bucky thinks, dully.  They haven’t even started and he’s already made a mistake.  

The unease coils tighter in Bucky’s gut as the silence stretches, gaping like a wound between them.  Finally, he can’t stand it, he needs a… _release_ before he snaps under the strain of anticipation.

“Do you… do you need any clarification—” Bucky starts.

“No, just—just shut the fuck up, Barnes,” Stark interjects, vehemently, turning at last.  “My fault, I’m _unbelievably_ sorry I asked.  Let’s—let’s just sit quietly for a while.  I need a minute to finish freaking the fuck out.”

Stark launches himself away from the table and drops onto one of the low, angular armchairs in the sitting area at the far side of the bed.  He leans over his legs, lowers his head, curls his hands around the back of his neck.

Bucky’s not sure what to do.  The old conditioning urges him to drop to his knees, to wait for his handler to give further direction.  But—

Stark had said specifically to sit.  Bucky glances around, uneasily.  He doesn’t want to go over to where Stark is, to the other armchair, though that’s the only obvious place to seat himself.  Bucky glances at the bed again, wonders again if it’s forbidden…

Then he decides:  fuck it.  

He’s already in trouble, anyway, and he’s sick of tying himself into knots, sick of this.  If Stark wants to punish him, he can punish him for two infractions just as well as one.  

Bucky lowers himself onto the end of bed.  He sits quietly, as instructed.

After a long while, Stark speaks again.  He’s lifted his head a little now and he’s sitting with his elbows braced on his knees, shoulders hunched, gaze focused out over the empty space at the middle of the room.

“All I meant was—I need to know what exactly you need,” he starts, slowly, his voice tight.  “You said… penetration, earlier.  Is there anything else that’s absolutely required to activate the… the reset?”

Bucky blinks, reviews everything he’d just described to Stark.  In retrospect, it may have been more… material than Stark had requested.  But—it’s always better to have too much information than not enough.  Stark’s a fighter, too.  He understands the importance of a briefing, before the launch.

“All that’s required is anal penetration—to orgasm—of the person who’s fucking me,” Bucky says after a second.  He stops himself before he starts talking about chemical triggers and his body’s reactions to ejaculate.  Stark doesn’t care.

“Okay,” Stark says, “so that other stuff you were talking about… all that about pain and whatever the fuck else—that’s not needed, right?”  Stark is looking at him now, his expression strained.

“No,” Bucky says.  “Nothing else is necessary for the reset.  But it’s all… available for use, based on what the handler likes, or wants—”

“ _Fuck you_ , Barnes,” Stark interjects, “I’m not your motherfucking _handler_.”  His voice is tight again:  with anger, with distaste.

Bucky breathes out, silently, shifts his eyes to the ground.  He’s tired of this.  It feels like they’ve been doing nothing but _talking_ for hours—they probably could have been done with the fuck by now, he could have been back in his own bed a long fucking time ago.

“I know you’re not my handler,” he says, finally.  “But—I know I’m asking for a lot, here.”  

Bucky stops, thinks through what he wants to convey to Stark, carefully, before going on.  “I want to make sure that you understand what I’m offering in return.  That… that I’m offering the—myself, in return.  Whatever you want, I’ll do it.  You can use me however you want, without worrying about ramifications.  And… and I don’t _mind_ ,” he adds, just to be extra clear, “I don’t care what you do, what you want, as long as you trigger the reset somewhere along the way.”

Silence.  “Christ,” Stark breathes, after a long moment.  “Jesus fucking Christ.”  

At least he doesn’t sound angry anymore, so Bucky must have done something right.

**~**

After all the stress, all the anxiety of the preliminaries, the actual fucking is almost anticlimactic.

Stark tells him he just wants to stick to the basic fucking requirements, and Bucky nods, compliantly.  Stark can stick or not stick to whatever the fuck he wants, he’s running the show.  

Then Stark finally, finally stands, moves toward the bed, starts undressing.  He doesn’t say anything or even look over, but after a second Bucky takes it as a signal to take off his own clothes.  He strips off his shirt and pushes down his pants and underwear, steps out of his shoes and socks.  When he’s naked, Bucky holds still and looks up.  Waits for inspection, for instruction.  

Stark pauses, hands motionless on his belt buckle, and glances at Bucky.  He slides his eyes down Bucky’s bared body—a quick, perfunctory look, only stuttering a little over the scars—before jerking his chin at the bed:  a direction.  

Bucky turns and climbs on until he’s positioned at the middle on all fours, knees apart.  It’s a basic, unthreatening position—good for uneasy new handlers.  He stops, looks up for confirmation, but Stark’s not paying attention.  He’s rooting for something in a drawer at the bedside.  Bucky turns his gaze back to bed, lowers his head, waits.  He studies the pale, almost shimmery gray bedspread underneath him.  It’s soft and yielding against his hands and knees, like a cloud.

After a moment, Bucky hears Stark exhale in a sharp, harsh breath as he catches sight of him.  Bucky’s fingers clench against the bedspread, despite himself.

“Wait,” Stark directs, shortly.  “I need a minute.”

Bucky’s not sure what he means.  Bucky _is_ waiting.  But it sounds like Stark expects him to do something different, so Bucky turns and lowers himself down onto his back.  He stares up at the high, raised ceiling above him.  It’s dotted with fancy light fixtures now aesthetically dimmed for night, to protect Stark’s delicate eyes.

He feels Stark climb onto the bed and settle himself beside him.  Bucky waits a second for Stark to tell him what to do—but when there’s nothing, he turns his head to look.  Stark is flat on his back, propped up on the pillows and jerking his own cock, slowly.  His eyes are shut, clenched.  

Bucky pushes himself up on his arm, reaches out with his flesh hand—to help, to maybe stroke Stark’s cock a few times, reassuringly, before using his mouth.  Stark’s eyes snap open as soon as he feels the shift in the mattress.  He curls his shoulder away from Bucky, defensively.

“ _Don’t touch me_ ,” he snaps.  Bucky immediately pulls back his hand.   _Miscalculation_ , he thinks.  

Then Stark gathers himself, continues more calmly, “I can handle it.  Just—just wait.”  He flicks a quick glance down Bucky’s body, adds, “You should—you know.  Get yourself hard.”  

So Bucky lowers himself back down on the mattress.  It doesn’t matter if Stark doesn’t want his hand, his mouth, just now.  He’ll want it all, and more, soon enough—all too soon.  They always do.  

Bucky stares up at the ceiling again and pulls at his own cock, focuses on summoning the required physical response.

After a long moment, Stark stops his movements and Bucky looks at him again.  Stark is fully erect now, his cock thick and glossy with lube.  He’s built longer than average and proportionately thick:  not the biggest Bucky’s ever had, but definitely not small by any measure.  Stark still has his eyes closed; looks like he’s bracing himself.  Bucky hears him take one more breath, then, finally, he opens his eyes, pushes himself up, clambers over until he’s between Bucky’s legs.  

Bucky spreads, accommodatingly.  He pulls his left leg up and back when he feels Stark’s hand brush his knee in indication.  He waits for Stark to lean over him, for his cock to press into him—Bucky focuses on his breathing, keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling:  this is nothing, _nothing_ he can’t handle—but instead, he only feels slick, tentative fingers at his hole.  Bucky looks down, confused, before realizing what Stark is doing.

“You don’t need to,” Bucky tells him.  “I prepped myself before coming.”

Stark stops, surprised, and his eyes flick up to hold Bucky’s gaze for the first time since they’d gotten on the bed.  “That was a little presumptuous, wasn’t it?” Stark says, a knee-jerk response, then immediately looks like he wishes he hadn’t.  

Bucky shrugs.  He’d come to Stark’s rooms with a purpose tonight.  This wasn’t a mission he could afford to fail.  

“You can go ahead and fuck me,” he says, but Stark still reaches down again.  He brushes at the edge of Bucky’s hole for a second, hesitantly, then presses one finger in, then two—to ascertain for himself, Bucky figures.  

Bucky pulls his leg up higher, holds himself open to make more room.  He keeps his eyes on the ceiling.

“Okay,” Stark says after a beat, maybe to himself.  He pulls his fingers out and raises his eyes, looks in the direction of Bucky’s face—focuses somewhere in the vicinity of his ear.  “I guess… I figure it’s probably unlikely that I’ll hurt you by accident, you being a supersoldier and all that.  But just—” he hesitates, finally shifts his eyes, reluctantly, to meet Bucky’s gaze again before continuing.  “Just for God’s sake tell me if I do something wrong—something you don’t want.”

Bucky nods, quickly, pliantly.  He wants to get on with the fucking so it can be done already.  He knows he won’t stop Stark, no matter what.   _Counterproductive_ , he thinks, _contradictory to desired mission outcomes_.  And anyway, it doesn’t matter because Stark is right:  he won’t hurt Bucky.  Not unless he works at it, with purpose, with intent.

Stark looks at him for a long second, then looks away, his expression turning inwards, bitter.  

“… And I’ll just pretend that you mean that, and that I believe you,” he mutters under his breath.  Stark sighs, closes his eyes again, briefly, before straightening and moving in toward Bucky’s body, leaning close to him, over him.  

 _Finally_ , Bucky thinks, as he feels Stark’s cock pressing at him, into him.  _At last._

 


	3. Chapter 3

The fuck is… fine, at first.  

Stark is oddly considerate:  he starts slowly, gives Bucky’s body time to adjust to the size of him.  Bucky breathes, looks at the ceiling and focuses on the feeling, the stretch, the slight burn, on relaxing into it.  He doesn’t think about soldiers in stiff black tac gear that digs into his naked skin, about rough hands pushing him down, about fear and panic and pain.  

After a while, he feels his body loosen a bit and he darts his eyes back to Stark, wonders if he’ll permit this, or if he’ll expect Bucky to clench against him, enhance the sensation.

When Stark doesn’t say anything, Bucky stops worrying about it.  He keeps half an ear out for further directives or instructions, keeps his left leg dutifully pulled up and out of the way, holds himself open for Stark—but he lets his mind drift.  He thinks about blue eyes and a ready smile.  He thinks about courage and honor and tenacious duty:  traits that have never described _him_ , never will.  

He thinks, unwillingly, about the things that do describe him:  about betrayal and dishonor and shame.

_Rough hands, pushing him down and back:  his legs wrenched apart, something hard and cold and brutal shoving into him._

_The Asset flinches, unconsciously, reflexively—feels a rough kick at his side in punishment.  The hard, rubber-soled boot digs into his unprotected flank.  He presses his hands flat on the cold concrete floor and surrenders, yields, lets them fuck him with the thing.  He wonders if this will be enough, or if they’ll turn it on—burn him from the inside out, make him scream until his throat bleeds while they laugh and laugh..._

He presses his hands flat at his sides and squeezes his eyes shut.  The thing inside him is still moving, thrusting and rubbing against delicate flesh—the one place where he’s still fragile, unprotected.   _Don’t fight it_ , he tells himself, _it’ll hurt less if you relax_.  He focuses on breathing through it.  He hears the air being pushed out of him in heaves, in gasps.

“Barnes, what the fuck,” a voice says, loudly, from directly above him.  

Bucky opens his eyes:  Stark is watching him, his eyes narrowed with unease.  He’s stopped moving.

Bucky looks up at him, fights to get his breathing back under control, to relax his body where it’s clenching painfully around Stark’s cock.

Stark looks tense:  he braces himself on straightened arms, starts to lift his body off of Bucky, starts to pull out, and—

Bucky feels himself stiffen all over again.  He _can’t_ let Stark go, can’t permit it.  Bucky’s already endured so much, and now the reset is _so close_ —

“Don’t stop,” he says, and his left arm—the weapon—shoots up, quick as a bullet, grabs Stark at his side right under his ribs:  holds him, prevents him from pulling any further out.  Stark freezes, stares.

“Barnes—” he starts, and Bucky can’t help it, the fingers clench a little tighter, nervously.  He feels Stark’s body tense further in response.

“Please,” Bucky interjects, forcefully:  the mission is _almost complete_ , he can’t allow Stark to derail everything at this late moment.  “It was—it was one of the stutters,” he lies, quickly, “you have to keep going or it’ll get even worse.”

Stark swallows, shifts against the solid grip of Bucky’s hand at his side.  His cock is still hard inside Bucky’s body.  Bucky braces his foot against Stark’s back and rocks his own hips up, urging.  At the same time, he pulls down on Stark’s body with his hand.  It makes Stark gasp a little, wince and turn his face away.  

“Please,” Bucky says again.

When Stark turns back to him, his expression is pained and his eyes have a hollow, almost sick look to them.  “Fine,” he says, capitulating, and then he shifts again, tentatively, against Bucky’s grasp.  His eyes dart up apprehensively.  

When Bucky lets go, Stark gasps and his body—sags a little, almost imperceptibly.  Bucky can see a bloodless outline of his metal thumb and the edge of his hand embossed in Stark’s flesh, glaring against flushed skin.  There’s something… _wrong_ about that image, and Bucky starts to feel a distant, nervous flutter in his gut at the sight, but—

“Fine,” Stark says just then, cutting off the thought.  “But, you—you have to _stay with me_.”  His voice climbs up at the end, insistent and—pleading, somehow.

Bucky just nods smoothly, amenably.  There’s no time for this—they need to keep going, _now_ , before Stark loses his erection; or Bucky will have to endure the whole thing all over again, from the beginning.  He pulls his leg further up Stark’s back, rocks his hips up again, encouraging, urging Stark to get on with the fuck.

Stark shudders, braces himself more solidly on his arms.  He glances down their bodies to where Bucky’s cock is lying, mostly softened now, against his belly.  “Maybe it’d help if you got more into the mood,” he says, flicking his eyes up again.  So Bucky obediently puts his hand back on his dick, squeezing and pulling at it obligingly, compliantly—anything to _get Stark moving_.

Then Stark closes his eyes and finally, _finally_ starts thrusting again.  Bucky lets out a long, silent breath:  in relief, in gratitude.

He keeps his own hand moving on his dick, focuses on maintaining his erection as Stark had directed.  And it turns out Stark was right, after all:  it does help keep the panic at bay—not out of any real pleasure, but simply because the mental effort it takes to keep himself hard is difficult enough, distracting enough, to push out discordant thoughts, at least for a while.  

He wonders, as he strokes himself to full hardness under Stark’s thrusts, if Stark will want Bucky to fuck him, after.  He can’t think of any other reason why Stark would want his cock erect.  Bucky shifts his gaze from the ceiling to Stark’s face to see if he can read anything there.  But Stark has his eyes squeezed shut, his brow tensed with concentration.

After a while, Stark’s thrusts grow more urgent and his breaths come faster, harsher.  Bucky pulls his leg more open and pushes his hips up to meet Stark’s thrusts, encouraging.  When he feels Stark’s cock swell inside him, he clenches down against it, rhythmically, helping to milk Stark through his orgasm.  Stark keeps his eyes clenched tight, stays silent through the end.

Bucky focuses on the feeling of Stark’s dick twitching, spurting into him.  He closes his eyes, takes in a lungful of cleansing air, feels his mind clearing, feels like he’s finally _breathing_ again for the for the first time in weeks.

**~**

After, Stark pulls out and rolls onto his back beside Bucky, breathing heavily for a few moments.

Bucky waits for Stark to recover, to be ready for what’s next.  He keeps stroking his own dick, slowly.  After a while, he reaches over to grab the lube that Stark had tossed to the side, squirts some over his dick, gets himself ready, slicked.

Stark seems to want to take his sweet time about it.  Bucky’s dick starts to get a little sore, he has to apply more lube.  He wishes, mildly irritated, that Stark had just told him he was going to want to take a fucking break in the middle.  It would have been easier, at this point, to let himself go soft, then harden again when Stark was ready.

Finally, after an inordinately long time, Stark glances over at him, then pushes himself up on his elbows, slowly—almost reluctantly.

“Do you—” he starts, then has to clear his voice before continuing.  “Do you need me to… jerk you, or suck you, or something?”

Bucky blinks, stops his stroking.  “No,” he says, confused.  Bucky’s prepared:  he’s hard.  

Then, “Are you ready?” he asks, raising himself up to look.  Stark gazes back at him, impassive, then he flicks his eyes down to Bucky’s hard cock.

Bucky takes it as a signal.  He pushes himself up all the way and starts to move over Stark.  He guesses it was too much to hope for, that Stark might want to ride him.  It would have been nice, simpler, to just lay back and let Stark use his cock to pleasure himself.  But—

Stark flinches, hard, away from Bucky’s hands.  He scrambles gracelessly back toward the headboard, then almost… huddles in on himself protectively, his eyes going wide.  “ _What the fuck are you doing, Barnes?_ ” he asks, his voice high, thin.

Bucky freezes.  “I thought—” he looks at Stark’s tense body, his widened eyes, his defensive stance—and Bucky pulls himself back a little, bewildered.  “I thought you wanted me to—you know.  Fuck you, next.”

“No— _Jesus_ , no thanks, I don’t need you to fuck me,” Stark says.  The words spew out of him in a wild, disbelieving rush.  

Bucky sits back, stares.  

“Can you just—just go ahead and finish up, already?”  Stark gestures, a little frantically, at Bucky’s cock, which is still hanging hard and heavy between them.

Bucky blinks, then lowers himself back onto the bed, well away from Stark.

 _Miscalculation_ , he thinks; reminds himself:   _don’t anticipate_.  

Bucky stares at the ceiling again and starts to stroke himself in earnest, with intent.  He stops wondering about the point of it.  If Stark wants him to come, Bucky will.  It’s counterproductive, dangerous to try to understand the hows and whys that make a handler tick.  He _knows_ this.

It doesn’t take him long to come.  He spurts into his hand, quietly, jerking a little as the physical sensation pulls at his body.

After a moment, he feels a shift on the bed, glances over—Stark tosses him a box of tissues.  Bucky carefully wipes off his stomach, his hands.  Between his legs, as much as he can.

He waits to see if Stark wants anything more, or if he’s done with him.   Stark stays silent.

“Can I go now?” Bucky asks, finally.

Stark flinches again, incongruously, before saying, “Yes, for _fuck’s sake_ —you don’t have to—” he stops, swallows.  Then Stark answers in a measured, even tone: “Yes.”   He pauses a second, then adds, “You can come back if—when you need this again.”

Bucky slides out of the bed, relieved.  He tries to keep his ass clenched as he moves, tries not to make more of a mess on Stark’s fancy sheets.  He quickly pulls on his clothes, his shoes.  

Stark stays motionless on the bed.  He’s got an arm flung over his eyes, shielding them, but he hasn’t bothered to cover the rest of his body.  He looks… exposed, and oddly fragile, somehow, lying in the middle of the wide bed alone.

Bucky slides his eyes away, turns to leave the penthouse, but then—

Something makes him pause, look down at Stark again.  

“Thank you,” he says, after a moment.  Bucky means it, sincerely:  he’s grateful, he doesn’t know what he would have done if Stark hadn’t agreed to this—

But Stark just stiffens at the words, presses his arm harder against his eyes, says, “Get the fuck out, Barnes.”  His voice is harsh.

So Bucky does.

 

* * *

 

Their next session goes more smoothly:  the second time with a new handler is always easier than the first.

 

* * *

 

By the third or fourth time Stark fucks him, Bucky is almost… at ease.  He knows pretty much what to expect, what Stark’s going to want.  

Bucky knows, by now:  Stark doesn’t like being handed the lube, or anything else.  Stark doesn’t like being touched without warning, or being touched by Bucky’s hands—either one—much at all.  Stark mostly likes to keep his eyes closed while he’s fucking, but he also likes to be in a position where he can observe Bucky’s face if he wants.  Stark never starts fucking him until Bucky’s hard, never lets them end a session until Bucky comes.  

He knows, by now:  Stark probably won’t want to hurt him for pleasure.  (Though this is one that Bucky is cautious with—he’s been surprised by handlers late in the game before.)

All of these parameters are easy to follow, and Bucky falls into the rhythm of them quickly, with little effort expended.

But there’s always a wrinkle with new handlers, and this one is completely unanticipated:  as the sessions go on, Stark falls increasingly quiet, increasingly closed off.

Bucky has grown used to the incessant sound of Stark’s voice echoing around the Tower:  prattling technobabble that no one but Banner understands, inserting snide quips into other people’s conversations, ranting at Clint, flirting at Steve, or whatever the fuck else.  He’s just gotten used to Stark _talking_ , all the time.  

So it’s… odd, uncharacteristic, how silent Stark is during a fuck.  But that’s not the issue—

The issue, the difficulty, is that a handler who doesn’t talk is the kind that has to be constantly read, anticipated, monitored—is the kind, in his experience, that creates problems.  It’s much easier when he’s told exactly what to do, how to position his body, how to act, what to say.  

That’s why, for all their brutality, the Asset actually preferred the soldiers that had charge of him during shorter missions:  they never required much from him other than unhindered access to his holes.

Bucky hopes it’s a new-handler nerves thing, that Stark will be more directive once he gets used to things.  Otherwise it’s just goddamn stressful, a completely unnecessary burden on Bucky, having to make judgments based on Stark’s body language, having to comprehend requirements, directions that aren’t verbalized.  Having to be on constant alert for subtle signs of displeasure, of anger.

He’s not sure yet if Stark’s the type that gets off on meting out punishments for unwitting mistakes, for transgressions of rules that haven’t been explained.

But he knows:  if Stark wants to punish him, Bucky will let him.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ETA 08/02/2016: And now there's[gorgeous (nsfw) art](http://thefilthiestpiglet.tumblr.com/post/148288306478/drew-a-thing-for-kaesarias-come-round-full) by thefilthiestpiglet!!_

It starts like this:  Bucky is sitting on Stark’s designer couch, in his designer living room, across from the man himself.  He’s holding his body carefully, deliberately loose, unthreatening.  Stark is staring at him, has been staring at him, silently, for long seconds.

“You want me to what,” Stark says, finally.  His tone is uncharacteristically flat.

Bucky slides his gaze past Stark’s shoulder, looks out the windows that open out to the expansive (expensive) view of the New York City nightscape: sparkly and sprawling and beautiful.

He explains, warily, again.  He keeps his voice even, impassive.  He doesn’t let it waver, doesn’t let it crack.

Bucky talks, steadily, about kill switches and contingency plans.  He talks about wipes, about memories wrenched out of his head.  He talks about neural programming and reset procedures.

He says, “It has to be penetrative anal sex conducted by another person, ideally male.  Otherwise, I would take care of it myself.”

He says, “It’s already starting to cause problems.  You’ve seen some of them.”

He says, “It’ll get a lot worse if I don’t deal with it soon.”

Bucky stops, makes himself look at Stark.  Stark’s body is pushed far back in his armchair, as if he’s trying—maybe unconsciously—to put a maximum of space between himself and Bucky.  His face is shuttered, unreadable, gaze fixed intently on the surface of the glossy, angular coffee table that separates them.  Bucky watches him steadily for a minute:  waits for Stark to meet his eyes.

He says, “Don’t make me ask again."  He can’t quite hold back the break in his voice, that time.

Stark lets out a sharp breath—a scoff, bleak and bitter.

Bucky feels his body tense automatically at the harshness of the sound.  It takes a second to force himself to relax, to look out the window again.  

“It wouldn’t be more than a couple times a week, probably,” Bucky says, after a while.  “And I’d—” he glances again at Stark, who’s still looking back at him, warily.  

“I’d make it worth your while,” Bucky concludes, quietly, amenably.  He tries to smile a little, at the end, but the expression sticks on his face, twitchy and irregular.  It makes Stark’s lips press together, makes his shoulders tighten into himself like a bulwark.

Bucky gives up on smiling and just watches Stark, waits, keeps his look steady and sanguine.

It takes a long moment—longer than Bucky predicts—but Stark ultimately crumbles, as anticipated, shifts his eyes away, rubs at them.  He looks edgy, drained.  

“Have you talked to Steve about this?” he asks, finally.  

Stark doesn’t ask about Natasha, about Sam, about any of the others, and Bucky lets out a slow breath.  So he was right in coming here, after all:  Stark knows why he can’t go any of the others.  

Banner is too volatile.  Sam is too sound, too stable.  Natasha is too strong.  

Steve is too… mercifully untouched, untouchable.  And he has to, _has to_ stay that way.  

The rest are complete unknowns, unacceptable risks.

But Stark—Bucky understands Stark, somehow, on some fundamental level.  He knows Stark is just damaged enough, just _defective_ enough, to make this work.  

Bucky knows the measure of Stark:  how to read him, weigh him.

Bucky thinks about Stark’s bloodshot eyes, his multiple, fully stocked bars and the constant burns on his hands from welding, drunk.  He thinks about how Stark’s face closes in on itself, haunted and guilty and ashamed, how he brings a hand up to rub at the center of his chest, unconsciously, anytime someone says _Ultron_ or _Afghanistan_ or _war_.  

He thinks about how Stark’s eyes track Steve’s movements, awed and bare, whenever he thinks no one’s paying attention.

Bucky knows how to motivate Stark:  how to convince him, impel him.

“Steve is—happy, now,” Bucky says, finally, deliberately.  “He deserves it, more than anyone.  I can’t take that away from him.”

He shifts his gaze to look at Stark’s face again, steady:  “ _You_ can’t.”

Bucky catches the flinch, the tightening in the man’s jaw, the slight drop of his shoulders:  in acknowledgment, in comprehension, in surrender.

“Okay,” Stark says, eventually, “fine.”  His voice sounds tired, resigned.

After a long moment, he stands up to gesture Bucky toward his bedroom suite, expansively, sardonically, “Come the fuck on inside, then.”

 _Mission accomplished_ , Bucky thinks.

 

* * *

 

A few more weeks of regular fucking, and Bucky notes that Stark is… not relaxed, exactly, not quite comfortable—but at least more _used to_ Bucky’s presence near him, in his bed, against his body.

He’s a little less jumpy, now that Bucky has learned the trick of averting his eyes while Stark is fucking him.

When he rolls off after coming, he’s not as adamant about making Bucky finish as quickly as possible.  He gives Bucky a little while to gather himself, to shed the close, claustrophobic feeling that assaults him any time Bucky’s got someone over him, inside him.  Stark allows him a few precious minutes to enjoy the clarity in his head, the lightness of mind—the full _relief_ that only seems to last a few short hours, anymore, after Stark comes inside him—before expecting him to jerk himself off.

When he does tonight, and after he spurts into his own hand, Bucky is aware of Stark’s eyes on him.  It’s unusual enough to make Bucky tense just a little.  He’s used to Stark keeping his gaze fixed resolutely elsewhere with a kind of grim, focused resignation, while he waits for Bucky finish himself off.  But this is—

 _A_ _deviation from standard procedures_ , he thinks.

Bucky wonders if this is it:  if tonight’s the night that Stark will finally demand something more from him.  Bucky half hopes so.  He’s sick of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But Stark doesn’t say anything.  He just keeps eyeing Bucky’s body, intently, silently.

So Bucky rolls his shoulders back and drops his arms to his sides, uncovers himself and lets Stark look.  Bucky keeps his breathing even, keeps his gaze fixed directly ahead.  There’s something soothing, calming about the familiar slant of Stark’s vaulted ceiling.

From the periphery of his vision, Bucky tracks Stark’s eyes as they skim his naked form:  over his legs, his hips, his stomach, his chest.  He watches Stark’s implacable gaze trace the silvery lines of battle scars across his torso, glide over the dark stripes left by lashes and canes and whips, now healed into discolored smears against his skin.  He watches as Stark’s eyes scan the rough, ridged outlines of bullet holes, the glossy patches of skin that cover old burns:  from weapons, from cigarettes, from crackling stun batons set to scorching heat.

Bucky sees Stark’s eyes stutter over the scars on his nipples, the ruined flesh from piercings ripped out, healed over, then pierced again and again.  He sees them falter, catch, on the tattooed guides and medical marks that concentrate around the unsightly, jagged mess at Bucky’s left shoulder:  where it had taken many layers of pain, of surgery over excruciating surgery, to get the arm—the weapon—to finally stick.

Stark makes a sudden move—and Bucky flinches a little before he can stop himself.  

When he looks over, Stark has frozen, his wide eyes on Bucky’s face, his hand an inch away from a mark low on Bucky’s hip—one that curves around his side and stretches onto his back.  After a second, he realizes what Stark wants, and Bucky obligingly turns over onto his stomach so that Stark can get a good look at his other side, too.

Bucky pillows his head in his arms, breathes, tries to relax the new tension in his spine, but—

He can’t help picturing what Stark is seeing:  a lifetime of pain, of shame, hacked and slashed and whipped and burned and etched—with artful, excruciating care—onto the flesh of Bucky’s back, over his ass cheeks (and between), down his legs and across the insides of his thighs.  He hears Stark’s indrawn breath—it’s loud, sharp with distaste.

Bucky wonders, distantly, if Stark is repulsed by his body, now that he’s finally deigned to look.  He wonders if Stark will want him to keep it covered—keep his shirt on, something—the next time he fucks him.

“This was… _carved_ into you, wasn’t it?” Stark is saying.  His voice sounds hoarse, like the words are being pulled out of him unwillingly.  Bucky feels a tentative brush of fingers at his side, up his spine, across his shoulder blades.  “Someone engraved a pattern, a—a design, and… and these _fucking words_ into your skin—Jesus.  I didn’t notice before, under all the—.”  Under all the other whip marks and scars, Stark doesn’t say, but he may as well have.

_Smooth, steely hands, pressing him down to his knees.  The Asset leans forward, braces his hands on the ground, carefully arranges his palms shoulder-width apart:  the appropriate posture.  The stance flattens his back, provides an optimally stretched canvas for his handler’s work._

_“Good boy,” comes the voice—commanding, cultured, clipped.  “Now remember:  no movement while I draw.  We don’t want a repeat of the unpleasantness from last time, do we?”_

_The Asset shakes his head, minutely, doesn’t lift it.  Then he carefully concentrates on keeping very, very still as he feels the sharp, chemical-dipped edge of the engraving cutter slice into his skin.  The Asset feels tears gathering in his eyes, watches them drop in spatters on the ground between his hands as the carving goes on and on.  Crying is allowed—but no sobbing, or gasping, or flinching._

_The handler doesn’t like it when his artwork gets spoiled.  Having to fix a mistake makes the handler very upset—it’s unpleasant for the Asset when the handler is upset.  He might just flay off the canvas and start over again._

Bucky startles a little, distracted, when he feels Stark’s hand skim over a patch of skin further down—right at the small of his back.  The imprint is clear enough there, he knows.  They made sure to renew the tentacled claws and skull of the HYDRA insignia regularly and often—just in case there was any doubt as to who the Asset belonged to, he figures.

“It’s a goddamn logo,” he hears Stark breathe, low and disturbed. “They burned their fucking _corporate logo_ onto your skin.”  He feels Stark’s thumb rub against the mark, almost as if he’s trying to wipe it out.  Bucky closes his eyes, concentrates on not squirming or pulling away from the touch.  It figures that out of everything, Stark would focus on the brand.

Bucky thinks about the glaring signs that shine all over the city, about how Stark’s name is stamped over everything that he touches—that he owns.

“You can use a graft,” he says, finally. “It’s been done before.”  Bucky shifts his right shoulder in indication:  there’s an almost-square, discolored patch there under all the fresher scars, where skin from another place—the back of his thigh, he thinks—had been grafted to cover where they’d cut something out of his flesh.  It was once a—a tattoo of a name, of someone precious, if he remembers correctly—though the name itself is long lost in his muddled memory.

Bucky turns his head to look when the silence stretches.  Stark is staring at him blankly, confused.  Bucky damps down his irritation, wishes Stark would move his hand.  He’s still rubbing absently at Bucky’s skin.

“You can remove the HYDRA brand and use a skin graft to create a fresh surface,” Bucky explains, slowly, as if to a child, “then you’d have clean skin for—for your own mark.”

Bucky feels the soft rush of air as Stark snatches his hand back in a quick, jerky motion.  Maybe he’s finally realized that he’s been touching Bucky’s skin _after_ a fuck—a first, for him.

When Stark doesn’t say anything for a moment, Bucky rolls back over onto his back, looks at the ceiling again.  

His body is an ugly sight, Bucky knows, disturbing and disgusting to everyone except a (thankfully) rare few who are into that kind of thing—but Bucky’s used to it.  It’s his body, it works well enough, and Bucky doesn’t mind it, doesn’t care what it looks like.  

Anyway, it’s not like he has to worry anymore about what _Stev_ —what a potential lover might think.

Stark sighs heavily after a minute, and presses his hands over his eyes as if he’s trying to erase the afterimage of what he’s just seen.  Bucky waits, quietly, a little while longer to make sure Stark’s done with him.  He’s finally about to start moving off the bed, to pull on his clothes, when—

“Listen, Barnes,” Stark says, his voice low.  He’s rubbing, absently, at the sprawling scar at the center of his own chest as he continues, “Maybe… maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

Bucky freezes, feels his heart rate shoot up.

“I don’t know if I’m the right guy to be… helping you with this thing,” Stark is saying, slowly.  “Don’t you think you should be talking to a psychiatrist, or Steve, or Sam.  Someone more—qualified, you know, for—”

Bucky can’t hold it back—the sheer relief overwhelms him, and he lets out a bark of something—a laugh, maybe—before he can stop himself.  For a second there, he’d thought Stark was going to kick him out, tell him not to come back to his bed.  Tell him to deal with this shit alone.

“It’s fine,” Bucky tells him, the reprieve, the incredulity coming through in his voice, “You know there’s no one _qualified_ for this.”  He turns to Stark, then, and adds glibly—reckless with relief:  “Anyway, you’re the world’s lead fucking expert at repurposing ex-HYDRA weapons, Stark.  I couldn’t be in better hands.”

Bucky half regrets it as soon the words are out of his mouth—Stark recoils, his face stiffens and his shoulders tighten in—but fuck it, Stark had _scared_ him.

“Stop being an asshole, Barnes, I’m just trying to be a goddamn adult for one second here,” Stark starts up again, but Bucky’s done listening, he’s sick of this pointless shit.  He wants to go back to his own bed, to sleep.

He rolls himself back over onto his stomach, spreads his legs.  “You can fuck me again,” he says, to change the subject.

That shuts Stark up, finally.  He flinches a little, then his face goes still, unhappy.  After a moment, he rolls away onto his side, his back to Bucky—the signal, at last.

Bucky slides out of Stark’s bed, quickly pulls on his clothes.

He leaves the penthouse without looking back.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Here’s a thing about Steve:  he’s their captain, their leader, their shield.  They all follow him, adoringly, instinctively.  He drives them, directs them, protects them.

He’s the one they’re supposed to go to with problems, with doubts.

Which is why when it happens in the locker room, when Steve’s not even there, he may as well have been—because Steve’s in all of their heads in an instant, anyway.

Bucky has just finished showering and dressing after a workout.  He’s sitting on one of the low benches, about to pull on his shoes, when the door connecting to the gym opens and Banner walks in, trailing Stark.  

Bucky notices the automatic stiffening of Stark’s back and shoulders, the instant wariness in his eyes as he catches sight of Bucky—but Banner doesn’t.  Banner is completely absorbed in whatever he’s talking about—something technical that Bucky could never hope to understand, would never even try to—and he only half-nods at Bucky in acknowledgment, without pausing in his speech, before turning back to face Stark.

They keep discussing… whatever it is, ignoring Bucky—Banner absentmindedly, Stark with focused resolve—and after a moment Bucky relaxes, goes back to folding his gym clothes, sorting his gear.  He carefully arranges his sneakers, his sweats inside his own, personal locker, taking his time to line everything up the way he likes.  It’s still novel, a quiet thrill, to have things that _belong_ to him and places where he can keep them safe.

It takes Stark a little longer, but Bucky senses when he, too, finally loosens—when Stark starts to really get caught up in his discussion with Banner, gesturing and interrupting and pointing; when he stops tracking Bucky out of the corner of his eye.

“—that’s what I’m talking about, the nanoneural inputs wouldn’t work on a human brain, they’re designed for a _virtual_ brainwave model, the two systems are completely incompatible,” Stark is saying, and Banner nods distractedly, reaches for something in his own locker.

“True, but what difference does that make?  We’re building components for a mechanized brain, we don’t need to worry about interfacing with organic inputs.”

Stark falls suspiciously silent.  It’s enough to draw Bucky’s attention again—and he feels something lurch in his gut as he suddenly realizes they’ve been talking about _his_ implants.  Stark’s been pouring over his brain scans for weeks now, mumbling and cursing about outdated technology and mind control and whatever the fuck else, and Bucky had been mostly tuning him out.  But now it sounds like he’s been discussing things with Banner, too. 

Fuck, what is _wrong_ with him—Banner’s not stupid, it’s not going to take him long to see through Stark’s pathetic attempts at subterfuge, especially when he’s being _this transparent—_

“Wait.”  Banner draws up abruptly, and Bucky goes still, waiting for it.  But then Banner continues, warily, “Tony, do not tell me you’re thinking about implanting Iron Man components _in your brain_.  Even you cannot be that idiotically, insanely reckless.” 

Bucky breathes again.  He can see the minute shift in the muscles of Stark’s back as the relief washes through him too, as he realizes Banner hasn’t caught on after all.  Yet.

In retrospect, that’s why it happens:  it’s because he finally lets himself relax, lets himself get engrossed in the conversation, distracted by the talk, that Stark forgets _himself_ for a second—

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about—” he says, and he pulls off his shirt mid-sentence, turns to reach for a towel, “—not that it’s a bad idea, per se, but JARVIS is actually much more effective than a direct neural link—”

Stark stops, freezes, as he catches the look on Banner’s face, the shock in his eyes.

“Tony, what—?” Banner starts, then he can’t seem to go on.  He raises a slow, astonished gaze up from Stark’s body to his face.

For a frozen moment, Bucky sees Stark—as if for the first time—through Banner’s eyes:

There’s a dark smudge right below Stark’s shoulder, high on his chest, where Bucky had elbowed him, clumsy with relief on his way out of Stark’s bed.  There’s a long, angry red scratch at his belly, where the rough plates of Bucky’s left arm had scraped against Stark’s skin while he was reaching (carelessly impatient, irritated) for his own dick.  There’s a fading, mottled-yellow blotch that blossoms at Stark’s side:  an older bruise that—if you know how to read it—outlines the shape of clutching fingers, of a clamped hand.

There's a deep weariness in Stark's gaze, and dark, heavy shadows on his face.

Bucky watches as Stark looks down at himself, slowly:  as he, too, sees it all through Banner’s eyes.

When Stark looks back up, he’s shuttered, pulled away, unreadable, except:  the white-knuckled clench of his fingers around the towel; the slight heave of his chest; the nearly invisible tightening of his shoulders drawing inward, tense.

“I fell down the stairs,” Stark quips, immediately, with dark humor, baring his teeth—and Banner jerks back, appalled.  

Then Bucky sees the tiny, mercurial shift:  the twitch at Stark’s jaw, the shadow of a qualm, the spasm of his spine as Stark consciously, forcefully suppresses the urge to dart his eyes toward Bucky.

Bucky stops breathing again—this is so, so much worse than anything about brain scans or implants.  His whole body is stiff with panic, with dread.

If Banner realizes, if he connects the dots… he’ll tell the others—tell _Steve_.  And then… Steve will know about Bucky’s defect, his _shame_ —and everything, everything Bucky’s had to endure, for weeks now, will be futile, pointless:  wasted effort, wasted pain.  They’ll put him back in cryo—Steve will never look at him the same way again—

 _Total mission failure_ , thinks Bucky, wildly, miserably, _cascading repercussions_ —

Amazingly, it’s Banner who saves them.

The man shifts, suddenly, moves to his right.  It takes a second for Bucky to realize that he’s—moved into Bucky’s line of sight; that he’s… _shielding_ Stark’s body from Bucky’s perspective, from _him_.  Right before Banner blocks his view, Bucky catches the twitchy (half astonished, half hysterical) look on Stark’s face as he realizes it too:  Banner is trying to protect Stark’s _privacy_.  He thinks Stark is embarrassed by Bucky’s gaze.

“Hey, uh, Barnes, buddy,” Banner says, then, turning around, “You got anywhere else you need to be right now?  I don’t mean to kick you out, but…”  He clears his throat and jerks his chin at the door, meaningfully, emphatically, troubled eyes locked on Bucky’s face.

Bucky stays motionless for a second longer, nervous, torn, but then—

“Yeah, Barnes, stop ogling me and get the hell out,” Stark directs from behind Banner, recovering.

So Bucky gathers his gym bag, his towel, and leaves.

He’s already outside the door when he picks up Stark’s voice—faint:

“Lighten the fuck up, Bruce, I was just kidding around.  It must have happened during my last sparring session or something—”

And, “—it’s not a big deal, seriously.  I can hardly feel any of it.   _You_ need to calm down though, buddy, before the Other Guy shows up and gives us a real problem to deal with—”

And, “—listen, you’re not going to say anything to Steve, right?  You know he’ll just make a big fucking deal out of absolutely nothing, and I really don’t need him on my case right now—”

Bucky closes his eyes, breathes.

He hopes Banner doesn’t remember—doesn’t know—that Stark only ever spars with Natasha:  that’s _she’s_ too careful, too skilled to leave injuries, to leave marks.

 

* * *

 

There’s a certain stiffness to the set of Stark’s shoulders that never goes away anymore when he’s around Bucky, not even right after he comes.

In his defense, it's been a particularly… _trying_ session, hot on the heels of a particularly crappy few days.

Bucky is feeling the stutters, the skips in his mind a lot more often lately.  They hit him at random moments, always unexpected, always jolting:  a sentence missed here, a few seconds lost there.  An object put down and later impossible to find.  It’s nothing huge, nothing he can’t handle—though he notices Steve watching him, strangely, piercingly, a few times.  

If Stark is around, he’ll usually say something, create a distraction and Steve’s eyes will invariably roll toward him, equal parts irritated and indulgent.  The moment will pass, and Bucky will breathe again.  But—the stutters leave Bucky jumpy, on edge, needing… a fix.  A reset.

 _Just a couple times a week_ , he’d told Stark at the beginning, but now he finds himself at Stark’s door, anxious and jittery and tense, almost every night.  

In his defense, Stark never shuts him out, never tells him to fuck off—never even lets a flash of irritation or impatience cross his face for Bucky to see.  He just looks at him for a second, then stands aside, lets Bucky come into his space, climb onto his bed.

Bucky always waits, quietly, once he’s got himself naked and settled, he keeps his eyes politely aimed elsewhere while Stark undresses and gets himself ready.  Stark never asks for help—he doesn’t like it when Bucky touches him.

Bucky doesn’t mind, he doesn’t care.  It saves time, in the long run:  if anything, it gives him a chance get himself prepped at the same time.   _Operational efficiencies_ , he thinks.

He grabs the lube that Stark tosses in his direction after squirting some onto his own hand.  Bucky slicks his fingers, reaches down to stretch himself.  He brings his knees up and presses his feet into the mattress, carefully works his hole open.  

Bucky doesn’t think about how this would feel if it was _Stev_ —if it was anyone else here with him.  He keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling as he listens to the soft, slick sounds of Stark jerking his own cock, trying to get himself hard enough to push into Bucky.  Stark is sitting at the edge of the bed, his back to Bucky, his shoulders pulled in, taut.

After a long while—longer than any time previously—Stark stops, leans over his elbows and lets his head drop, a little, panting.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath.  Then Stark glances over his shoulder at Bucky, a little careful, a little contrite, says, “It’s—it’s not cooperating right now.”  

Bucky meets his gaze.  He doesn’t know what Stark means by that.  What he expects.  Bucky has finished his own prep:  his asshole is slick and stretched open.  His dick is already half-hard in anticipation of the fuck.   _Advantageous conditioned response_ , he thinks.  

He looks at Stark, waits for direction, instruction.  A request, a demand, something.

Stark just sighs, turns away, rubs a hand over his face, “Fuck, I’m not thirty-five anymore.  I can’t just—just _go_ on command…”  Bucky hears the strain in Stark’s voice, the conscious effort to keep the bitterness out of his tone.

Bucky shifts his eyes up to the ceiling again, wishes Stark would just tell him what to do.   They should be past this new handler shit, he thinks, impatiently, unjustly.

Then Bucky makes a call:  he turns so he’s on his side, head pillowed on the metal arm, facing Stark’s hunched body.  He reaches out and places his flesh palm flat against the span of skin in front of him—presses right above the small of Stark’s back.  Bucky ignores the reflexive spasm of tension that flickers up Stark’s spine, runs along his shoulders.   _Irrelevant_ , he thinks, _unavoidable_.

After a moment, Stark twists his body around to face him, drawing one leg up onto the bed, eyes wary.  The movement makes Bucky’s hand slide across Stark’s skin, land on his flank.  

Bucky’s eyes catch on the sprawling scar that spreads from the center of Stark’s chest like a spider web.  It tentacles out to blend into the faded, mottled bruise at Stark's side, the long scrape at his gut, the other marks scattered across his skin:  as if holding them there, enduring and ugly.

He’s still looking at it as he opens his mouth to speak.

“You need something else?” he asks, “My hand?  My mouth?  Just tell me what to do.”  

He shifts his gaze to Stark’s face before adding, steadily, amenably, “Whatever you want—I’m good.  You know that’s what I’m here for.”

Stark flinches, hard, turns his head away:  but not quick enough for Bucky to miss the wave of dark fury that rolls across his face.

Bucky pulls his hand back.   _Miscalculation_ , he thinks.  He breathes, concentrates on not panicking at the sight of Stark’s hands clenching into fists.   _Irrelevant_ , he thinks, _immaterial_.  Stark’s not going to hit him—he never does—and anyway, it’s not like anything Stark could dish out would be anywhere close to what the Asset has endured before.

But then—

Stark moves like he’s going to get up, to leave the bed, and—Bucky tenses, feels a wash of real fear—cold, like ice water—flowing through his veins:  he can’t allow Stark to go, to _leave him_ like this, not before—

He feels his body shift, rear up, automatically, unthinkingly.  His metal fingers coil around Stark’s wrist in a solid, unbreakable grip, holding him to the bed—almost before Bucky realizes he’s moved.

“Please,” he hears himself say, his voice tight, anxious, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” but he’s not sure what he’s apologizing for.  What exactly _had_ made Stark so angry all of a sudden—angry enough to leave?  Bucky tries to think past the rising panic:  irritation in his voice, earlier?  The unsolicited touch?  

Or maybe Stark is just sick of this burden Bucky has placed on him, is… bored of him.  Maybe he’s not willing to do this anymore.  The terror coils tighter in Bucky’s gut.

“Barnes—” Stark starts, his voice low in warning, but Bucky cuts him off, quickly, terrified of what’ll come next—

“Please,” he says, again, “Let me—” he tries to remember, frantically, what had he done for past handlers—ones assigned to him for months during extended operations, who’d needed new distractions to entice.

“Let me use my mouth,” he tries, “I’m good at it.  Or—” desperate now, he lets his mouth run faster than his brain, on autopilot, “you can hit me.  They—they liked it, before.”  He knows it’s the wrong thing to say, that Stark is the wrong kind of handler for this kind of inducement, but… the panic isn’t letting him _think_.  He doesn’t know what else to _do_ —Stark doesn’t like it when Bucky touches him—he barrels on, scared and miserable, “I can tell you how to get the—the best responses, where to aim.  I’m—they said I’m pretty when I’m hurting.”

Stark is silent, his body rigid, his eyes wide with—some incongruous emotion, something Bucky can’t remember ever seeing on a handler’s face.

Bucky’s left hand—the weapon—is a lot less sensitive than his flesh one.  It’s designed to be that way, on purpose, so that the Asset can use it without hesitation during combat:  efficiently, brutally, without the distraction of unnecessary sensation.  So, caught up in his own anxiety, Bucky doesn’t immediately notice that Stark has been pulling at his grip, emphatically, that he’s been forcibly trying to free his wrist, until—

“Let go of me,” Stark says.  His voice is tight, but—unassailable.  Commanding.

Bucky releases him, instantly.  His eyes drop to Stark’s wrist.  He catches a flash of injured skin:  reddened, irritated, rubbed raw where Stark had been struggling against Bucky’s restraining grip.  Stark quickly pulls his wrist in toward himself.

“Jesus Christ,” he says slowly, after a beat, “I was just going to go to the bathroom.”  Stark is cradling his arm against his body now, protectively, rubbing at the injury.  Yet another injury.

“Do I have your permission to go take a leak, or are you going to disproportionately freak out again?” Stark asks mockingly, scathingly, after a second—clearly putting some effort into keeping his voice steady.  But his eyes are dark, wary, tracking Bucky’s body on the bed.

Bucky swallows.  He drops his gaze, ashamed.  

He wishes, for a miserable second, that Stark really _was_ his handler:  that he’d be punished, or corrected, at least.

**~**

In the end, thankfully, mercifully, Stark instructs Bucky to use his hand after all.  Stark lies flat on his back, eyes screwed shut and breathing through his nose.  Bucky, lying next to him, facing him, rubs a lube-slicked palm over Stark’s reluctant cock where it’s lying quiescent against his flat belly.  It takes a long few minutes, but eventually it starts to fill out, to harden, under Bucky’s patient (expert) manipulation.

To keep his mind from returning to—to other things, Bucky lets himself wonder what Stark is thinking about, or who.  Then he stops wondering, because there’s not enough space for Steve between them, on Stark’s wide bed. 

After a while, Bucky props himself up on his elbow, tucks his head down and watches the movement of his hand sliding along Stark’s dick.  He thinks about nothing.

Eventually, Stark’s breathing takes on a slightly faster, rougher cadence.  Stark opens his eyes, starts to pull away.  Bucky lets go of Stark’s cock and rolls over onto his back, stretches his arms out by his sides, pulls up his knees, cants his hips.  

As Stark presses into him, Bucky closes his eyes, focuses on the sensation:  the stretch, the faint burn, on not clenching against it.  When that’s not enough, he thinks about the weather, thinks about the sky, something, _anything_ to keep the images out of his head:  flashes of straw-bright hair and blue eyes and a smile that Bucky would follow to the ends of the earth.

He knows they’re dangerous, _it’s_ dangerous:  this pull in his mind, this inability to keep a firm lid on his thoughts during a session.  It can create a crack, a fissure in his control—and that’s all the… the _panic_ needs to slither into him again, to get ahold of him, to get him into trouble.

But other unbidden, unwanted thoughts flow into his head despite himself:  of dark, mottled marks on Stark’s skin, of the worry in Banner’s eyes.  Of what _Steve_ would think, what his quick mind would deduce if Banner went to him.

Time falters, badly, for a few seconds, and Bucky clenches his fingers on the mattress.  Fights to keep himself from tensing, from clenching.  If Stark stops now…

He’s pathetically relieved when, a few seconds later, Stark shifts slightly, and his cock brushes against that subtle, tender place inside Bucky.  It’s startling, it jerks Bucky back into the now.  He lets out a short, deliberate grunt—a signal—and Stark acquiesces, obligingly adjusts his angle to slide against the spot with each thrust.  After a while, Stark’s breathing speeds up again, grows more urgent.  Bucky reaches down to grab at his own cock, jerks it in time with Stark’s thrusts.

Satiation comes like a convulsion:  half surprising, half unwelcome.  Bucky breathes through it; focuses on keeping his hips lifted for Stark’s final thrusts.  Against the silence of the room, Stark’s last, jerky gasps sound loud, harsh:  like sobbing.  

After, Stark carefully pulls out, slides off.  He rolls onto his side, facing away from Bucky, and curls in on himself, still panting, quietly.

Bucky is left looking at the taut line of Stark’s back, again, at the tension that ripples across Stark’s shoulders: like a protest, like a scream.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Here's a thing about Steve:  he's always there—at Bucky’s shoulder, at his back—even when he's not.

He’s in Bucky’s head, watching over him and guiding him, gently—whenever Bucky is muddled, when he doesn’t know what to do, when the world gets too overwhelming, too fucking confusing.  When simple things like reset sessions with a handler get all convoluted somehow, get complicated with unwanted, unfamiliar feelings like guilt and shame.  When nothing makes any sense anymore.

Bucky thinks about the long sleeved shirts Stark has been wearing all week.  He thinks about the mottled bruise on Stark’s side that’s somehow _still there_ , against all medical probability.

He paces again.  It feels like he’s already worn a long, weary path in the carpet that stretches from his bedside to the dresser at the far end of the room.

Finally Bucky stops, makes himself crouch down to open the lowest drawer, the one on the right.  He pulls out the medical-grade restraints—reinforced to withstand his enhanced strength—and looks at them, weighs them in his hands.  

There’s nothing inherently frightening or scary about the things.  They look ordinary, familiar, utilitarian.  Useful.  He’d used them on himself before, many times, before he’d finally gotten the nightmares under control.

He looks up, thinks about what Steve would do.  It’s obvious.  Of course Steve would put the other person’s safety, their comfort, over his own.  Bucky stands up, slides the straps and cuffs into the bag that the doctors had given him along with the custom-made restraints.

Bucky drops the bag near his door, resolutely, then turns to get some long-delayed sleep.

**~**

The next time Bucky goes to Stark, he’s prepared.

He waits until Stark waves him into his bedroom, waits until Stark has had his requisite drink and has come to the bed, has pulled off his shirt.  Bucky drops the small, nondescript black bag on the bedspread near where Stark is standing.  He stands still, waits.

Stark stops undressing and looks with wary eyes at the bag, at Bucky.  Then, with an air of resignation, Stark slowly lowers himself onto the edge of the bed and opens the bag.  He draws out the gleaming, lined metal.

Stark sits for a long moment looking at the things on his lap, in his hands.  He runs the pad of his thumb along the inside of one cuff, where the nylon padding meets the dulled edge of metal.  He turns it over to inspect the small, quick-release trigger that sits over the center of the wrist, where Bucky can press with a finger to get free.  

Stark could disable that feature pretty easily, but Bucky thinks—he hopes—that won’t be necessary, won’t be required.

“What the fuck is this,” Stark says, finally, lifting his head.  His gaze stops somewhere around Bucky’s shoulder, doesn’t want to go any further up.  That’s not really the question Stark’s asking, Bucky knows—because it’s fucking glaringly obvious what Stark is holding in his hands.

“You need to restrain me,” Bucky says, flatly.  “You need to protect yourself.  I’m causing damage.  Injuries.”  He slides his eyes down Stark’s chest, skimming over bruises and marks.  He catches the quick tightening of muscles as Stark stiffens, sets his jaw, mulish.  He sees the twitch in his arms as Stark suppresses an urge to—hide something, or… cover himself?  It doesn’t make any sense.  Bucky has seen it all before.  Has—inflicted it.

He thinks for a second, then adds, “I’m sorry.”  It seems like the right thing to say.  

But Bucky’s not sorry, not really.

He sure as fuck _regrets_ Stark’s injuries, but—.  They’re not his fault, it’s not _his_ responsibility to look out for the welfare of the handler.  That’s on Stark:  he’s the one who’s supposed to be monitoring himself, monitoring _Bucky_.  Stark is the one who’s supposed to be directing him, and—correcting him when he makes mistakes, punishing him when needed to discourage further bad behavior, or—at the very least—restraining him so it’s not possible for him to hurt Stark by mistake.

Bucky knows he’s being unjust even as he thinks it, but he’s pissed off.  It’s not _fair_ of Stark to put this burden on Bucky, to make him think of everything, to _ask_ for restraints, for correction.  He’d thought Stark was better than this.

When Stark looks at him, finally, his eyes are narrowed with resentment, with anger.  

“Fuck you, Barnes,” he snarls, “I’m not going to fucking _tie you to the bed_ while I _ra_ —” he stops there, cuts himself off, breathes heavily.  He heaves the things off his lap and onto the ground between them.  

Bucky looks down, irritated, at the pile of metal-and-nylon that snakes out between his feet.  He knew, he just _knew_ that he was going to have to go twelve rounds with Stark on this, like with every other fucking thing.  Stark can never resist the urge to complicate things that should be easy, goddamn _obvious_ —

But then… a new thought slithers into his head:  

Maybe Stark is trying to make him ask _on purpose_.  Not just to be his usual, contrary self, but—maybe he _wants_ Bucky to beg.  It’s not anything he’s shown a predilection for before, but… he’s been fucking Bucky for a couple months now, he’s probably ready for something different.

Fine, then.  That’s simple enough—Bucky knows how to put on a show when it’s required.  It’s not even difficult, or painful.

Bucky takes a slow breath, then lowers himself to his knees in front of Stark, slowly, keeping his eyes on the floor.

He takes his time, reaches down to gather up the tangled straps.  He tilts his head slightly, exposing the side of his throat, as he stretches out a hand for the cuff that's slid between Stark’s feet.  He shuffles forward on his knees, still under the guise of reaching—until he’s close enough to touch—then Bucky bends his neck, turns his head to lower his cheek onto Stark’s thigh.

He presses his face against it, keeping his body soft, languid, his eyes lowered.  He slides his hands up behind Stark’s calves, gently, brushes the sensitive flesh there through the thin fabric of Stark’s pants.  

Stark’s body is still and stiff as a corpse under his cheek, under his hands—completely unresponsive—but Bucky’s not worried.  These kinds of games take some time.

He tilts his face into Stark’s leg and nuzzles there for a second, soft and shameless.  Then he turns to brush his lips against Stark’s inner thigh—just above the curve of his knee—and whispers, breathes:  “ _Please_ … please do this for me—”

A low, strangled sound is all the warning Bucky gets before Stark _shoves_ at him, forcefully, violently—

Bucky lets it happen, allows himself be flung backward until he’s sprawled at Stark’s feet.  He was ready for it, already half-anticipating a slap, a kick.  In his experience, it goes this way about half the time.

— _You’ll spread for anyone like a whore, won’t you_ —

— _fucking slut, I knew you wanted it all along_ —

— _yeah, beg me for it, I’ll give you what you need_ —

Bucky shakes the voices off, quickly— _inapplicable_ , he thinks—and then,

Slowly, deliberately, Bucky pushes up onto his elbows, hunches his shoulders, drops his gaze.  He lets his knees fall apart, sprawling, lewd.  He wets his lips and leaves his mouth open, just a bit—just enough so that Stark can see the wet tip of his tongue resting on his lower teeth.

Then, when he’s fully posed—when he knows he’s presenting himself to optimal advantage—Bucky lets his eyes dart up, quickly, haltingly, to catch a glimpse of Stark’s reaction, to gauge his response.

Stark looks—shaken, stunned.  His jaw has gone slack with shock, his shoulders tight.

Bucky’s pose falters a little.  It’s not the response he was expecting, and Stark’s continued silence is starting to make Bucky uneasy.  But he’s come too far now, and Stark hasn’t actually told him to stop, so Bucky barrels on, nervously, recklessly:  “ _Please_ , I need it—I need to be tied down, strapped to your bed—”

“Barnes, what are you—” Stark says, finally, and his is voice high—choked—but he stops abruptly when Bucky reaches to pull up one of the cuffs, to snap it around his own wrist—the flesh one.  The thin, metallic _click_ of the closing latch seems to echo loudly.  From the edge of his vision, Bucky sees Stark flinch at the sound, his lips pulling back with… some emotion.

Bucky’s unease grows and twists—he tries another tack, wildly, frantically:

“I—I _want it_... I’m a slut,” he says, he begs.  “I want to be held down and spread open for you, _please_.”  He sucks in an unsteady breath, doesn’t dare to look up at Stark again as he continues, trying to remember the things he’d been taught to say, before.  “I—I want to pull at the cuffs—to struggle, and… feel them tighten, hold me immobile under you.  Please, _please_ say you’ll do it, that you’ll… teach me my place—that you’ll—”

“ _Barnes, stop._ ” Stark says.  There’s a jagged, broken edge to the sound of his voice that makes Bucky fall silent, look up.

Stark is staring at him:  his eyes are wide and dark, like gashes across his bloodless face.  

“Please— _please stop_ what you’re doing,” Stark croaks.  “I’ll—I’ll do it.  You win.  Whatever you want.  Just—just don’t do… _this_ , anymore.”  

Bucky pushes himself up on his hands, carefully, cautiously, slides his legs back together.  He looks at Stark, trying to see what he’s missing, trying to understand the trick—

“You’ll… use the restraints?” Bucky asks slowly, in his normal voice.

Stark drops his gaze, bends his neck.  His hands are clenched rigidly on the mattress at his sides.  His shoulders are hunched, his body half-twisted in on itself—as if Stark is in pain, as if he’d been punched in the gut.

He nods, minutely, doesn’t lift his head.

**~**

Stark sits there for a long while, doesn’t touch the cuffs, doesn’t touch Bucky.

Finally, woodenly, he starts to pull off his clothes and climb back on the bed.  It takes him a long time to get hard enough to fuck, even with Bucky’s hand on him, stroking, coaxing.  Stark keeps his gaze averted the whole time.  He doesn’t look, doesn’t move as Bucky finishes getting him hard, as Bucky moves to lock the cuffs around his own wrists, looping the chain around the steel bedframe.

But after, when he’s finally ready, Stark looks straight at his face as he pushes into Bucky’s body.  His eyes are wide open and staring:  the strange, blank look in his gaze makes Bucky want to turn away, uncomfortable.

Bucky feels himself pull, reflexively, against the cuffs at the first unrelenting press at his hole, as his body yields, stretches to accept Stark’s cock.  

A cold thread of something like dismay, like dread, uncoils through him at the sharp, intractable sensation of the chains pulling taut, holding him in fixed position under the invading body above him.  Bucky pushes the feeling away.  This is _nothing_ he can’t handle, nothing he hasn’t done—that hasn’t been done to him—a thousand times before.

Bucky breathes, concentrates on keeping his body loose, on not clenching against Stark’s thrusts.  He focuses on the physical effort it takes to keep his legs spread apart and up, to keep his hips canted as much as possible, holding himself open for Stark.

It takes Stark a long time to come, despite all of Bucky’s efforts—even longer than it had taken to get him hard.  

By the end, things are starting to chafe and they’re both covered with sweat from exertion.  Bucky almost tells Stark to close his eyes, think of something else, or at least use some more goddamn lube—he must be hurting his own dick by now, which probably isn’t helping—but Bucky’s afraid to say anything to break Stark’s concentration, to prolong things even more.

So Bucky just wraps his hands around the reinforced straps of the restraints, holds on, focuses on keeping the discomfort, the distress, from showing on his face.

When it’s finally, finally over, the wet, salving feel of Stark’s come against his sore inner walls is almost as much of a relief as the clarity in his head.

**~**

After, Stark hurriedly reaches up to hit the releases on the cuffs to free Bucky’s wrists, even before he’s fully pulled out.  His sweat-slick body presses and slides against Bucky’s in his haste, and Bucky cringes at the feel, at the sense memory.  He turns his face away, presses it against his bicep, hiding, stiffening before he can stop himself.

He’s not sure if it's that, or something else, that makes Stark push off quickly and slide away across the bed until there’s enough space for another body between them—maybe two.  Stark throws an arm over his face and is silent, unmoving, for a long moment.

Bucky uses the time to even out his breathing, to relax his muscles, one at a time, to roll his shoulders and clench and unclench his hole, trying to make everything feel normal again—okay.

“Barnes, listen to me,” Stark says, finally, “I can’t do that again.  I _can’t_.”

Bucky freezes.

“You can say whatever you want, whatever awful, degrading thing you can think of,” Stark continues, picking up intensity, “you can elbow me with that goddamn arm until I’m black and blue, you can—you can tell the others, tell Steve, what I’ve been doing to you, you can expose me to the world for what I am, hang me from the Tower balcony and spit on my corpse—but I _will not_ fucking tie you down, ever again.”  Stark’s chest is heaving by the end.  He’s still got his eyes covered with his arm.

Bucky breathes again.  He waits a minute to make sure Stark’s done, then, “Alright,” he says softly.  

Strangely, shamefully, he’s mostly relieved.  The restraints hadn’t worked the way he’d planned.  They hadn’t done it for Stark, obviously.  And… Bucky hadn’t thought a little fear, a little pain would shake _him_ so much, not after everything.

But—the Asset is dead.  And Bucky is weak.

It still leaves the problem of Stark’s injuries, though.  Bucky sighs.  Sessions had never been so _complicated_ , before.  He’s used to the handler doing the heavy lifting, figuring things out, fixing issues when things go wrong—telling Bucky what to do, making corrections.

Bucky looks up.  He wonders if Stark will tolerate another suggestion.

When Stark doesn’t say anything more for a long moment, Bucky decides to risk it.  “If you don’t like the restraints, maybe—” Stark looks up at him, warily, waiting, “maybe you could punish me—correct me, when I do something wrong.  When I… cause injuries.”

Stark recoils, his lips pulling back in a snarl, “Barnes, are you fucking _kidding me?_ ”

“Just listen to me,” Bucky interjects, agitated, trying to make Stark understand, “I know you don’t get off on it, on hitting me or hurting me, I _know that_ —but this is different.”   He puts his hands out, palms to Stark, placating, “It’s just—I’m… I’m used to being corrected when I make a mistake,” he continues, hurriedly, “I’m _trained_ to respond to that.  So if you could do something… something light, even, like a slap or a kick, then… it’s helpful.  It helps the—my body, to remember what’s okay, what’s not.”

Stark twists his body around, turns so he’s faced away completely.  

 _Miscalculation_ , Bucky thinks.  

He watches the tight, contracted muscles of Stark’s back for a couple of moments until he finally turns back a little, speaks again.

“This is why… I’m afraid to even _talk_ around you, Barnes,” Stark says, sounding exhausted, worn-out.  “Every time we have a conversation—every time you open your mouth, it all gets _worse_.”  Stark’s voice cracks a little, then picks up speed as he goes on, as if he feels some compulsion to spit out the words as fast as possible, get them _out_ of himself, even if only for himself to hear.

“You make it that much clearer how _unbelievably fucked up_ you are,” Stark continues, low and intent, “and how much of a twisted fuck _I_ am to be… to be doing this to you.  To have done this to you for so fucking long already.”  Stark stops, swallows before going on, his voice falling to a hoarse whisper—

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m no better than the HYRDA fucks that hurt you… that tortured you and raped you and beat you and carved you up, and—and fucking _got off_ on all of it.  Fuck, I’m _worse_ than the worst of them because… because I’m supposed to be better,” he croaks out, thickly, almost raspy at the end.

Stark falls silent then, stares into space with blank eyes.

Bucky doesn’t know what to do, what Stark expects from him.  Commiseration?  Consolation?  Sometimes handlers had liked it when the Asset stroked their backs, petted them, pressed himself against them comfortingly, when they were stressed or agitated but not in the mood to take it out on his body.  

But—Stark doesn’t like it when Bucky touches him.

“You’re wrong,” he says, finally, hesitantly.  “You’re—” _the_ best _handler I’ve ever had, not the worst_ , Bucky wants to say, and he wouldn’t be lying.  It’s taken him long, wary weeks to gather enough data to recognize it, but beneath Stark’s prickly surface and his touchy, moody silences in bed, Stark _is_ the best.

Stark doesn’t hurt Bucky.  He does the resets as often as Bucky needs, even when he’s not in the mood.  He assists, uncomplainingly, whenever maintenance is required on the arm.  He doesn’t ever treat Bucky badly or crudely, inside or outside of his bedroom.  He doesn’t get possessive of Bucky’s body when they’re around others, the way a lot of long-term handlers had tended to get.  

In fact—except for a bit of extra stiffness around his spine, a bit of added wariness in his gaze—he treats Bucky exactly the same as he did before, with the same casual arrogance and intermittent rudeness he shows anyone else around him.

But—he knows that’s not what Stark wants to hear.  

“You’re fine,” Bucky finally concludes, lamely, when it feels like the quiet has stretched for too long, is starting to prickle at his skin.  “I’ve had much worse.”  

Heavy silence for a beat, then—

“ _Jesus_ ,” Stark says, again, and he drops his head into his hands, rubs agitatedly at his eyes.  “Well, thank you very much for that oh so characteristically nut-shriveling piece of assurance, Barnes.  I feel so fucking much better now.”

He’s still pulled away from Bucky, though, muscles tight, face averted, unhappy.  

It’s not _fair_ —Bucky wishes Stark would just tell him what he wants, what Bucky should say.  He’s already done his best tonight at guessing, at anticipating Stark’s needs, at seeing to his physical safety, his comfort, even—but somehow Bucky has made it worse.  He feels even more guilt, more shame, than he did before this whole mess with the injuries, the fucking restraints.

“I’m sorry,” he says.  He thinks for a second, then adds, “You don’t have to—to punish me, not if you don’t want to.  It was just a request.  It’s completely up to you, of course.”

But Stark just flinches again, pulls his shoulder up to hide—to shield—his face even more.  Bucky watches as his chest rises and falls a few times under heavy, controlled breaths.

“Just go, Barnes.  Please just fucking leave now,” Stark says, quietly, finally:  an instruction, at last.

Bucky is halfway back to his own rooms before he realizes that he’d never gotten hard, tonight, that Stark hadn’t made him come.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Here's a thing about Steve:  he shines bright and golden, like the sun.  He erases the shadows under Stark's eyes, fades the bruises on his skin.

Steve _pulls_ at Stark whenever they’re in a room together.  Stark adjusts his posture unconsciously, unthinkingly, shifts this way and that, gesturing, gesticulating, assuming one dramatic pose after another as he talks—but he always ends up oriented toward Steve:  the way a compass vacillates, but always ends up pointing north.

They’d all spent most of the morning together in meetings, and Bucky had spent most of that time watching the two of them.  He’d seen how relaxed they were around each other—how effortlessly at ease—in a way neither of them ever is with him.

Bucky’s still thinking about it as he lets himself into the penthouse that evening.  He doesn’t bother knocking at the outer entrance anymore.  The door is set to recognize him and unlock automatically now.  He can insert himself into Stark’s space as easily as his own.

It’s a little earlier than the usual time he comes, but Bucky is already feeling jittery and tense.  The pressure at his temples and the _itch_ under his skin seems to come on a bit faster every day.  He’s been trying to hold out for twenty-four hour stretches between each reset, but it’s getting harder.

Bucky is inside the entry hallway and about to head toward Stark’s bedroom when he hears the voice—Steve’s voice—coming from ahead, from the kitchen-and-bar set to the side of the main living area.

“No, really, he seems to be doing a lot better—there’s less of the Soldier and more of my friend every day,” he’s saying.  Steve is talking about _him_.  Bucky backs himself against the hallway wall, automatically, unthinkingly, quiet as a shadow.  He positions himself so that he has a good view of the bar area—of Steve, by reflection of the mirror behind the bar.  And of Stark.

Stark quips something indistinct, face opening into a slow smile, and Steve laughs in response.  Bucky looks at the soft, relaxed set of Stark’s shoulders.  He thinks of a time, a lifespan ago, when _he_ was the one that brought that easy, untroubled, achingly familiar grin to Steve’s brilliant face.

“But seriously, I was worried for a while,” Steve continues, his clear voice floating easily to Bucky’s ears, “you know, that he was regressing—he was starting to get that vacant look back in his eyes, and he kept… I don’t know, he kept going all silent and frozen at strange times.  But lately—he’s almost _himself_ again.”

There’s a looseness in Steve’s body, a certain slackness in his jaw that means he’s already had quite a few drinks infused with the amber liquor Thor sometimes brings back from Asgard—the only thing that can get Steve buzzed.  Stark makes a point of keeping it stocked at all the Tower bars.

Stark is behind the counter, wiping down a glass with the edge of a towel he’s tucked into his belt.  He keeps his eyes carefully fixed on the task as he asks in an even voice, “Yeah?  You think so?  You don’t notice anything… off, or… wonky about him, lately?  Nothing newly weird about our very own one-armed wonder?”  Stark smirks, sharp as a knife under blank, hooded eyes as Steve glares up at him.

“Shut up, that’s not funny,” he admonishes.  Then Steve’s voice falls low and absorbed as he continues, almost like he’s saying the words to himself, “God, Tony, if you knew what he’s been through, the things they did to him—” Bucky sees Stark stiffen, then, watches his shoulders curl inward as Steve goes on, unaware.  “Some of it was in the files, and the rest I could read between the lines…  It was horrible— _inhuman_.  There are no words…  You wouldn’t treat _an animal_ that way.”  

Steve falls silent, hunched over his drink.  Bucky knows what’s in the files:  enough, but nothing close to the full extent of… everything.  Steve has to be spared the rest.  

Stark drops his towel and leans over the bar, arms braced on either side of him, head lowered.  He studies the marble slab in front of him, intently, for a long moment.  “Barnes is a strong guy,” he says finally, his voice low now, and almost shaky—as if he’s trying to convince himself of what he’s saying. “He’s a survivor.”

Steve looks up at that.  “Strong?” he says, fond.  “Hell yes, he’s strong.  He’s the toughest, most resilient guy I’ve ever known.  Feed him a hammer and he’d crap out nails, would my friend Bucky.  He’s amazing.  I’m so proud of him.”  

Bucky swallows, silently.

Stark is still for a long moment, then says, “If there was something he asked you to do—something he needed, a—an awkward, personal thing, would you do it?”  Stark flicks his eyes up, briefly, then goes on.  “Even if it was a thing that might cause… problems?  Or made you uncomfortable, or—”  He stops there, starts wiping the glass again fixedly.

Bucky has frozen, body and mind.   _What the fuck is Stark doing?_

But Steve just looks confused at the sudden switch in Stark’s tone.

“You mean… help Bucky with something?” he asks, sounding bewildered.  “Of course.  I’d lay down my life for him, no questions asked.  Tony—after what Bucky’s been through, what he’s survived, he deserves everything, _everything_ we can do for him.”

Bucky holds his breath, watches from his hidden vantage as Stark shifts, uncomfortably, wets his lips, opens his mouth to—

“But that’s the amazing thing,” Steve continues, oblivious, “Bucky doesn’t _need_ my help.  I watched him and asked him and… and hovered over him until it drove him nuts—but he’s _fine_.”  Steve pauses to take another sip of his drink, smiles a little, wryly.

“I mean, obviously he still needs therapy, and some more work on his social skills and all that…”  Steve looks up here, stares into Stark’s wide brown eyes.  “But God, Tony, I was so afraid at the beginning, that—that they’d _broken_ him, and that after everything, I’d never have my friend back.  That I’d be _alone_ here, forever.”  Steve’s voice cracks a little at the end, and he drops his eyes again.  

There’s a sharp twist inside Bucky’s chest.  He watches as something similar, painful, flashes across Stark’s face.

“I know that’s selfish,” Steve goes on, loose with drink. “I’m a selfish guy, I guess.  But it just makes me so happy to see him every day, normal and functional and… and just _better_ than anything I let myself hope for, back when we were searching for him.  God, so much better.”

For a second, Stark’s expression looks like a brittle thing, like it could splinter under Bucky’s gaze.  But he closes it off, solid as a slamming door, when Steve looks back up to catch his eye.

“Wait—why are we talking about this, anyway?” Steve asks, guilelessly.  “Has Bucky asked _you_ for something?”  

Stark immediately forms his lips into something like his usual smirk:  reflexively, defensively—though the expression doesn’t quite make it up to his blank, hollow eyes.  He opens his mouth to say something disarming, distracting, but—

“Nat told me he’s been going to you for the maintenance on his arm,” Steve barrels on, heedless.  “I know that must be a pain, you’ve got a million other things you’re working on… but Tony, please.  You’re the best, the most qualified person to be dealing with him—the whole thing is too complicated, too dangerous for anyone else to touch.”

Steve looks up, catches the shaken, disjointed expression on Stark’s face.  He must mistake it for something else—reluctance, or apprehension, or irritation, maybe, because—

“Come on, Tony,” Steve says, entreats, “For _me_ , if not for him.  He’s my friend.  Please, he needs you.  Promise me you’ll help him in any way you can, that you’ll do whatever he’s asking for.”

Bucky pushes away from the wall, slips silently down the hall toward Stark’s bedroom, moving as fast as he can, but—

Not fast enough to outrun his own fucking ears.

“I promise,” he hears Stark whisper.  

**~**

When Stark finds Bucky waiting in his bed a couple of hours later, his eyes widen for a second—but he doesn’t seem overly shocked.

“It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” is all he says, tiredly, before moving toward the bed, pulling off his clothes along the way.  

Bucky nods, blankly.  He’s already naked, prepped.  His hands are fisted on the bedspread at either side of him against the jittery spasms in his mind, the miniscule time jumps that are starting to make his vision flicker like one of the half-remembered movies from when he was a kid.

Bucky focuses on keeping his breathing deep, steady, even as he _wills_ Stark to hurry up, to get hard, to fuck him already.   _Immediate maintenance required_ , he thinks.

“Barnes, are you okay?” he hears Stark ask hesitantly, after a second.  “You’re looking even more dead-eyed and menacing than usual…” his voice trails off as Bucky turns to him.  Something desperate must be showing on his face—the panic or the fear or the dread—because Stark tenses, eyes widening in alarm.  He reaches forward, suddenly, with a hand—

Bucky jerks back, away from the threat, instantly, reflexively, and Stark freezes, lowers his hand.  Bucky sucks in a harsh, shaky breath, tries to focus on Stark’s face, tries to relax his tense, twitching body, tries to look unthreatening, receptive, appealing for his handler…

“ _Please_ ,” he hears himself croak, though he doesn’t know what exactly he’s begging for:   _Please hurry_ , or _please don’t_ , or _please make it stop_.

He feels raw, exposed, out of control.  He should have alerted Stark earlier, but Steve was still here—it’s never gotten this bad this quickly—he should have found a way—he’s going to be punished for letting it get this far— _total wipe imminent_ —

“Turn over, spread your legs.”  Stark’s order cuts through the mayhem in his mind.  It’s a tone that Bucky’s never heard from him before.  It sounds… commanding and—scared, at the same time.

Bucky’s body is jerky, clumsy in his rush to obey.  He turns over onto his stomach and spreads his knees wide, lifts his hips and pushes his face into the pillow underneath.   _Please, please,_ he thinks, a chant, a mantra, his mind too fragmented to string together anything more coherent.

Bucky feels something—Stark’s fingers—brushing at his hole, and he immediately pushes back against the pressure, shameless in his need, his distress.

“Hold on, big guy,” he hears Stark saying, and Bucky’s dimly aware of the slick sound of lube on skin—Stark is jerking himself, anxiously, trying to get hard—and Bucky groans, whines into the pillow under his face in frustration, in fear.   _Please,_ he thinks, _please_.

“Sorry, sorry—almost there, just wait,” Stark gasps, but Bucky can’t, he _can’t_ —

Then suddenly, he feels Stark’s fingers push into him, two, and then three.  

Stark shoves them in as far as he can, starts twisting them, thrusting them, and Bucky gasps, surprised.  The shock of it—Stark hasn’t once put his fingers inside Bucky after the first time—startles him enough to pull his mind back from the brink.  

The fingers aren’t _enough_ , of course, he needs Stark’s _cock_ in him, he needs Stark’s come to coat his insides—but they’re something, an anchor to hold onto, a lifeline, and Bucky grinds back against them, gasping, focusing on the stretch, the presence of a body near his, inside his.

By the time Stark finally, finally moves up behind him, when he pulls out his fingers and lines up his cock, Bucky is sobbing, writhing, clawing at the bedclothes and mattress and pillows under his face, under his clutching hands.  He can feel the edge of blankness—the wipe—sliding closer and closer inside his skull, vast and looming and _terrifying_.  

Bucky drives himself back, wild, frantic, as soon as he feels the head of Stark’s cock breach his rim.  He feels Stark’s hands land on his hips, alarmed, trying to hold him steady, hold him back—

“Please, fuck—fuck me, I need it—” he hears himself gasping, pushing back, fucking himself on Stark’s cock.  “Harder, more, _please_ …”  He’s whining with every breath now, the fear washing over him in waves.

And finally Stark obeys.  He digs his fingers in at Bucky’s hips and drives into him, fucks him roughly, gives the Asset what he needs.  Bucky is gasping, shaking, jolting under brutal thrusts— _please_ —

When he feels the first jerk of Stark’s come spurt into him, deep and hot and wet, it feels like the first blink of sunlight after a nightmare, like the first gasp of air after the ice.

After, Stark rolls off of him, slides onto his back beside Bucky and just lies there, gasping, staring with blank, sightless eyes at the ceiling for long minutes.  

Bucky can still feel the tremors shuddering through his own body, the cold spikes of adrenaline, of fear, receding slowly from his bloodstream.  He can still feel the silent sobs rocking his shoulders.

Bucky presses his face into his folded arms and breathes, breathes.

**~**

“Well, let’s never fucking do that _ever_ again,” Stark says, after a long while, when they’ve finally managed to pull themselves together, somewhat.  He moves his arm off of his face and squints, warily, over at Bucky.  “What the fuck _was_ that?”

Bucky swallows, then turns agonizingly over to lie on his back.  Stark likes it when he can see his face.

“It’s getting worse,” he says finally, to the ceiling.  “The failsafe—it’s kicking in faster between resets.”  He hears Stark let out a heavy breath.  He tracks, out of the corner of his eye, as Stark lifts his hands to his face, rubs at his eyes.  He looks exhausted.  But when he speaks again after a long moment, Stark’s voice is steady, matter of fact.

“So, let’s look at the data here,” he says, “I fu—I mean, we had a session last night, at… what? Around midnight?”  Stark glances over at the bedside clock, “And it’s only just past ten, now.  When did you start feeling the need to… for the reset?”

Bucky thinks about lying, or at least stretching the truth—but that doesn’t make any sense.  And it isn’t the kind of lie that would hold up, anyway.  So he tells Stark the truth.  Then he goes on, tells Stark how the warning tension around his temples—the tightness that comes hours before the stutters start—is coming on earlier every day, too.

“Alright,” Stark says, softly, finally.  “It looks like we’re down to about an eighteen hour window—should probably make it sixteen to be safe—between resets.”  He falls silent, then adds quietly, as if he’s talking to himself, “I want to do another scan of your head in the morning.  Maybe some of the implants have moved around, shifted or something.  It doesn’t make any practical sense for you to need the reset so often.  It wouldn’t work in the field, even for HYDRA nutcases…”  He trails off, lost in thought.

After a while, Stark sighs, rubs his hand over his face again.  Then he slides off the bed, heads toward the bathroom.

“I’m exhausted, I’m going to take the first shower,” he says, over his shoulder.  “And you can change the fucking sheets for once, you’re the one who ripped them up.”  

Bucky blinks at Stark’s receding back.  “You—you want me to stay?” he asks.  

Stark stops, turns around, faces the direction of the bed.  He looks tired, trapped.

“You might as well, since we’re going to need to do this again in the morning,” he says wearily, then adds, “Someone’s going to see and get irritatingly curious if you’re sneaking in and out of my room at all hours.  This way, we’re cutting the chances down by half.”  Stark raises his eyes to meets Bucky’s for just a second, an unhappy ghost of his usual smirk hovering over his face. 

“Anyway, the fucking bed is big enough, ever since Pepper packed and left.”

**~**

Much later, Bucky is lying quietly on Stark’s bed.  All the lights are off.  He closes his eyes and evens out his breathing, keeps his inhales slow and regular.  He doesn’t move, listens carefully to the sounds coming from the far side of the bed.  

Eventually, Stark stops moving around, stops his restless shifting, falls asleep.

Bucky runs his flesh hand over the soft, fresh, 1500-count Egyptian cotton sheets underneath him.  This isn’t the worst thing he’s ever had to do, he thinks, not by fucking long shot.  It’s not even difficult, or painful.

He doesn’t think about his bedroom, his own, safe space, now out of reach.  He doesn’t think about how the mattress under him feels like a marshmallow, like he might sink into it and drown.  

He doesn’t think about how he’s going to be spreading his legs for Stark first thing in the morning.

Bucky sleeps.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Since you've stuck with me this long, dear readers, I'm willing to bet you're beyond all shock. But just to be safe: this chapter is arguably even rougher than previous ones. Buckle up, kids—Rumlow's behind the wheel._

And it’s _not_ bad, not awful, not after the first few nerve-wracking nights.  

Stark doesn’t even sleep in his own bed half the time—maybe more—so Bucky has the whole fucking thing to himself most nights.

They fall into a new cadence, a routine:  Bucky waits until after Steve has gone to his own rooms for the night (22:00 hours every evening, like clockwork, like the soldier he is), then makes his way up to the penthouse.  He gets naked, gets himself ready and waits for Stark, who trudges in an hour or so later smelling of liquor and machine oil.  Then Bucky spreads, and Stark fucks, methodically, efficiently, and the whole thing is usually over within half an hour, tops.

After, Stark pulls out, rolls off and heads to the shower.  Bucky listens to the water run as he changes the sheets—with expensive, crisp, freshly ironed linens from Stark’s inexhaustible supply—and waits his turn.  Stark usually doesn’t look at him as he stumbles past on his way out of the bathroom.

By the time Bucky is out of the shower, Stark is already asleep on his side of the bed (or at least politely pretending) or he’s not there at all—he’s left, gone back down to his workshop for the night.  He’s always back by sunrise, though, and dutifully gives Bucky his morning fuck before passing out with his back determinedly turned to Bucky.

But it takes some time before they find that pattern.

Bucky is a light sleeper to begin with and the first few nights in Stark’s bed are fraught, tense.  He jerks awake, stiff as a board, ice-cold adrenaline rushing through his entire body every time Stark moves on the mattress beside him.  He listens to the panicked pounding of his heart, holds his breath, waits for a possessive, demanding hand to land on his hip, his thigh, his cock.

“Jesus, Barnes,” says Stark, out of the darkness at the far side of the bed, after the seventh or eighth time it happens. “I’m not going to fucking jump you in the middle of the night, you know.”

“Sorry,” Bucky says, still trying to get his heart rate back under control.  “Sorry, it’s just—” he pauses.  “It’s just that I’ve never really shared a bed with anyone before, other than—.”   _Other than the handlers who kept me close to fuck me at their convenience through the night_ , he doesn’t say—but some of it must come through in his voice.

“Jesus,” Stark whispers, then Bucky hears him swallow, hard, before speaking again.  “How—how old are you, anyway?”  

Bucky knows that’s not what he’s really asking.  He stares up at the dim shapes of the light fixtures high above, wishes Stark would just go back to sleep already.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes was twenty-three years old the first time HYDRA captured him, twenty-five the second time,” Bucky says, finally.  “The Asset got out seventy-one years later.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stark says after a long minute.  Then he’s finally, mercifully silent.  Bucky closes his eyes, breathes, waits for Stark to fall asleep.

_The Asset is floating in a warm, safe place.  His body is loose, relaxed.  There’s no pain here, no ice, no blood.  He presses back into the warmth, basks in the soft glow all around him, the low, pleasurable thrum that runs through his body.  He sees a flash of laughing blue eyes—_

_“Fucking Christ, look at you,” snarls a callous, loud voice, very close._

_The Asset opens shocked eyes just in time to see the handler reaching for him, to feel the rough grip that closes around his sleep-hardened cock, the harsh yank that follows.  The handler laughs at his startled whine._

_“You just can’t get enough, can you?  Fucked dry by the whole team last night, and here you are, ready and raring for more.”_

_The Asset bites back another whimper, reflexively slides his gaze to his handler's face.  The sun is just starting to rise in the sky outside the dingy hotel window, so there’s enough light for the Asset to see all the details of the face in front of him—the sunken eyes, narrowed now with malicious amusement, the dark hair, the shadow of stubble on his hard, square jaw, the lips that are pulled back in a vicious grin._

_The handler twists his wrist, ruthless, squeezes harder and digs his nails into the Asset’s sensitive flesh and—he can’t hold back the next whimper, the groan of pain._

_“You like that, huh?” the handler sneers at him.  “I’ll give you something to moan about, don’t you worry.”  He moves over the Asset, then, and shoves his leg up, brutally high, out of the way.  He spits on his hand and smears it on his own cock before pressing it, uncaring, against the Asset’s raw, still-healing hole._

_“You’ve still got enough spunk in you from last night, huh, slut?” the handler is grunting as he shoves himself forward, and the Asset gasps, twists his face away, feels himself clamp down, involuntary, against the invasive, abrasive pain._ Don’t _, he tells himself, frantic, afraid,_ it’ll hurt less if you relax _._

_The handler grunts through the rough friction of the first few thrusts, then relaxes after the fragile skin clenched around him inevitably tears.  The thrusts get harder, faster, more brutal as the way is slicked by fresh blood.  The Asset closes his eyes, hears himself whine, a low, long sound of fear and misery, feels the tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes._

_The handler slaps him across the face, violently, with the back of his hand._

_“Don’t you run away from me now,” he snarls, then glances down, cruel lips pulling back in an ugly sneer as he says, “Don’t go losing your chubby this late in the game, either.  Go ahead, jerk yourself off like I know you want to, like the fucking cock-hungry whore you are.”_

_The Asset pants through the pain, struggles to move his hand over—_

_“No, use the metal one.  I like the way it makes you twitch,” the handler orders, his eyes narrowed with vicious glee._

_So the Asset obeys, closes his left hand—the weapon—around his now mostly flaccid cock, yanks at it painfully in time with the handler’s excruciating thrusts.  The sharp edges of the whirring metal plates catch on delicate skin, and the Asset hears himself whimper again, miserable and hurt and afraid.  If he can’t get hard—if he doesn’t obey—he can’t even bring himself to guess what the handler will do to punish him._

_“What, you getting shy on me all of sudden?” the handler grunts, looking down, shoving the Asset’s leg further up and out to get a better view.  His dark eyes gleam with new thread of malice, then, as he says, “Just think about whatever you were dreaming about before, you stupid fuck.  Were you thinking about my big dick driving into you?  Rollins’?  Or Pierce’s mildewed old cock, maybe?”  He shoves himself forward a few more times, brutally, laughing at his own crude humor as the Asset tries to hold back another whine, still pulling helplessly, hopelessly at his soft, unwilling flesh._

_Then, suddenly, the handler yanks himself out—the Asset moans at the sudden, ripping withdrawal—and knocks the Asset’s hand aside.  The handler leans down over him and lines his own slick, blood-covered cock up with the Asset’s.  He grips them both together in one large, rough hand, starts jerking them in concert.  There’s a cruel, cunning glint in his eyes now, and the Asset feels a fresh rush of fear, ice cold, run through his veins._

_“No, you were thinking about some skank you fucked back in the day, weren’t you?  Back when you were still human, huh?”  The handler laughs again, low and mean, before continuing, “So think about her now.  I want you to picture her face while you look up at my handsome mug, slut.  While you feel my hand on you, jerking you, making you come.”_

_The Asset feels a cold sweat start to sheen over his skin.  He hates this, he hates these kinds of games.  He has no defense against them, he can’t ever pull away, can’t hide inside his head—_

_“Tell me about her,” the handler is saying, still pulling at their cocks.  Despite everything, the Asset feels himself start to harden again under the relentless assault.  He’s horribly, miserably relieved at the sensation.  Maybe the handler won’t punish him anymore, now, maybe—_

_“Go ahead, describe her to me,” the handler says again, a new hardness entering his tone.  “Was she tall and curvy, with big tits you could stuff your face in?”_

_The Asset swallows, frantic, afraid, trying to think of something to say.  He doesn’t—he doesn’t know, he doesn’t remember, there had been no face in the dream, just a vague idea, a shifting, warm impression—_

_“I said, tell me, slut,” the handler hisses down at him, eyes slanting with the beginnings of real anger now.  “Start talking before I get bored and think of another way to get some noise out of you.  Think, you stupid fuck—what color was her hair?”  He twists the head of the Asset’s cock, making him whimper again at the pain—_

_“Blond—blond hair,” the Asset hears himself gasp, hoarsely, hating himself even as the words come out.  He feels a twist of nausea curl inside him, somehow stronger than the agony at his still-throbbing, ripped hole, stronger than the hateful waves of pleasure that the handler is yanking from his cock._

_The handler grins at that, wide and mean, his teeth glinting, shark-like in the dim morning light.  He speeds up his strokes and leans down on his elbow, panting, getting close:  the fun of hurting the Asset like this—inside his scared, muddled head—gives him more pleasure than any of the purely physical pain he regularly rips from the Asset’s body._

_“Good,” he growls, “Tall, busty blonde, I can get into that.  You got good taste, slut.  Now think about her and come with me.”  The handler presses himself close against the Asset’s skin now, moving his hand out of the way to rut against him, sweat-slick skin against skin.  His keeps his cock lined up against the Asset’s in perfect position as he thrusts, grinds down.  He’s panting, almost there, and the Asset closes his eyes, tries to focus on the pressure, the sensation at his cock.  He thinks about nothing, nothing…_

_“Eyes,” the handler snarls, right at the end, “What fucking color were her eyes?”  The Asset rips open his own eyes, freezes in shock, in horror, as the vague, fuzzy impression from the dream suddenly coalesces in his mind, comes together in a sharp, pure, awful image:  of blond hair, a warm, easy grin, and—_

_“Blue, blue, they were blue eyes,” the Asset sobs out, moans out, as he comes and comes._

“Barnes, are you alright?” says an anxious voice, very close.  

Bucky opens shocked eyes to see a face looming, too near—a dark, uneasy gaze and black hair and the hint of stubble across a sharp, angular jaw.  Bucky flinches back, wildly, _recoils_ in panic, in terror.  

He’s already scrambled halfway up the bed, frantic to get away, before he recognizes the alarm, the dismay in Stark’s wide eyes.  Before he recognizes Stark’s frozen face.  Bucky lowers his arms, slowly, struggles to control his harsh, frenzied gasps.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he hears Stark whisper hoarsely, after a moment.  Bucky glances away, glances back.  He can feel his heart pounding in his chest.  The sun is just starting to rise in the sky outside the large penthouse windows, so there’s enough light for Bucky to read the worry on Stark’s pale, tired face.

Bucky breathes.  He _wills_ his body to loosen, to relax.  He looks out the window again.  It’s morning.  They don’t have time for this.  And—he doesn’t want to think about it.  He doesn’t want to answer all the silent, reproachful, impossible questions Stark leaves hanging between them.  That are always hanging between them.

Bucky forces himself to lie back, turn over, spread his legs.  He takes a deep, shaky breath, then glances back at Stark.  He’s still staring down at him, frozen.  Bucky closes his eyes, steels himself—

“Can you do it from behind, today?” he asks.  

Bucky can still taste the bile in his throat, the lingering nausea at the pit of his stomach.  He can’t imagine looking up into Stark’s dark eyes while he’s getting fucked yet again.  Not yet.

~

After that, Stark starts to go down to his workshop more often, after night sessions.  

They find their new cadence, their routine.  They fall into the habit of moving, of looking past each other silently most of the time:  like shades passing in the night, hardly ever making contact—even while they fuck.

And if Stark starts looking more and more haggard around the edges, if his eyes are tired and bloodshot and ringed with dark shadows more often than not—

Well.  There’s not much Bucky can do about that.  He never told Stark to stop sleeping in his own fucking bed.  And at least Stark is _allowed_ to leave it at night, if he wants, to go wherever the fuck he wants—unlike _him_.

So Bucky doesn’t think about it.  He tries not to care.

He ignores the sharp twist in his gut every time he overhears Steve’s voice, tight with worry, asking his friend:   _Tony, how many drinks have you had?_

And:   _What’s going on with you, lately?_  

And:   _Are you alright?_

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Happy 4th of July!! To celebrate Captain America's 98th birthday, I give you a moldering pile of Steve angst._

Here's a thing about Steve:  he's the link between them—the rope that ties them together, the wall that holds them apart.

They both know it, ignore it, live their fucked up lives edging around the truth of it.  It’s not something that can ever be acknowledged.  But despite all their finagling, all their careful silences:  the impact of everything unsaid between them—of _Steve_ —comes to a head when neither of them is least expecting it.

Bucky wakes up with a vague stiffness in his left shoulder.  It’s nothing particularly painful, but the feeling is just ungainly enough to be a nuisance.  The arm needs maintenance. 

In the clear, unforgiving light of retrospect, Bucky now knows that he should have said something about it right away, as soon as Stark staggered back into the penthouse in the early hours of the morning—or he should have just not said anything at all.  But he’d still been sleepy, distracted, and Stark had been just as impatient as him to get the reset of out the way as quickly as possible. 

By the time Bucky thought about it again on his way out of the shower, it was too late.  Stark had already been passed out on the bed after another all-nighter in his workshop or wherever the fuck he’d been spending his nights lately.  So Bucky had just shrugged it off and left the penthouse.  He’d go down to Stark’s workshop later if it was still an issue.

It’s not until after breakfast, after his morning run with Steve and Sam, after the useless hour he spends sitting rigidly on the shrink’s couch, that he notices the stiffness again.  It seems a little worse now.  There’s no constraint to the range of motion yet, but it feels like there might be pretty soon.

He’s on his way downstairs when he runs into Stark in the shared kitchen on the main floor.  He’s making coffee.  It looks like he’s just now gotten himself out of bed.

“You need to replace the k-cups if you use my Keurig upstairs,” he tells Bucky irritably.  “I’m sick of hauling my ass all the way down here first thing in the morning.”

Bucky doesn’t bother pointing out that it hasn’t been morning for hours. 

He explains the issue with the arm.   He expects Stark to tell him to go wait in the basement workshop.  It’s where they do the usual maintenance.  But Stark just eyes the arm for a second, then picks up his mug and heads toward a door on the other side of the common area—one that Bucky had noted before, but never thought about too much.  He’d figured it was a utility closet.

The door unlocks for Stark when they get close and Bucky follows him inside.  It turns out to be a slightly larger room than Bucky was expecting.  It’s lined with humming, blinking servers around the perimeter walls and there’s a waist-high workbench in the middle scattered with odd tools—screwdrivers, wrenches, things like that.

“Welcome to JARVIS’s brain,” Stark tells him.  “Well, one of them, anyway.”  He shoves some stuff out of the way and gestures Bucky over.  He still looks tired, irritated.  It’s his standard look these days.  Bucky goes over to rest the arm at the edge of the table where Stark is gesturing.

Stark picks up a screwdriver and starts in on the upper plates.

“Listen, I finally got the scans back from the lab, the new ones of your head,” Stark says after a long, distracted moment.   He doesn’t bother to look up as he talks, and Bucky feels something give as one of the screws comes off the arm.  “We’re going to need a medical consult though, my neuroscience isn’t up to par.  You want to schedule something with your own doctors, or—?”

“No,” Bucky says, immediately.  The medical staff always asks too many questions.  They’ll manage to get the shrinks involved too, somehow—they always do.  And Steve.

Stark pauses and glances at him, sidelong.  “Okay,” he says, after a moment, “I can probably find someone down in bioengineering that I can con into helping.  What’s one more lie to add to the metric fuckton of secrets and half-truths I’ve already got crammed into every—” 

Good, Bucky thinks, then he stops listening.  He knows the words aren’t for him anyway.  Stark can fucking deal with it, he can talk to whoever the fuck he wants.  Bucky already knows there’s no point—there’s no medical solution to this, no fix.  Only the resets. 

Bucky hates going to the doctors, anyway, they make him—

He stiffens, looks toward the door.  Stark had left it ajar behind him.

“Barnes, what’s the issue, I’m still—” Stark starts to say, annoyed at the shift of the arm under his screwdriver, but then he hears it too.  Someone… two people are coming down the hallway outside.  They’re heading toward the kitchen.  Light, agile footsteps, voices coming closer—

It’s Steve and Natasha, Bucky realizes.  They’re talking, laughing.  Bucky relaxes.

He looks at Stark, waits for him to say something or go to the door.  Make their presence known.  But Stark stays still.  He’s silent now, intently focused on whatever he’s doing to the arm. 

Apparently eavesdropping is fine when Stark is the one doing it.

“Hey, I _do_ listen to you,” Steve is saying from almost directly outside.  Bucky can hear the smile in his voice.  “I let Sharon take me out for dinner, like you told me to.  It didn’t work out.”

“Fine, fine.”  Natasha sounds like she’s rolling her eyes.  “How about Claire then, from PR?  She was asking about you the other day.”

“Claire?” Steve asks doubtfully, “Isn’t she a little… I don’t know, flakey?”

“You never give any of the girls a real chance,” Natasha says, admonishing, and Steve gives a self-deprecating snort in response.  Their voices are moving further away—into the kitchen area—but it’s still easy to hear everything they’re saying.  Bucky glances over again, but Stark has his head ducked resolutely down, his hands busy.

“Okay, if the ladies aren’t doing it for you… how about we consider some boys, then?” comes Natasha’s voice again, after a beat.  “Hmm, what about that guy Sam brought over from the VA last week—what was his name?  Matt… or Mark, something?  I saw you looking at him.”

Bucky concentrates very hard on holding the arm perfectly motionless.  He hears the sharp intake of breath to his left, but Stark still doesn’t say anything, doesn’t stop his work.

“Come on, Nat,” Steve is objecting, laughing now, “I’m not gonna hit on a guy I only met once for five minutes.”

Bucky feels a sharp twinge at his shoulder as Stark prods at something sensitive.  Bucky glances over, automatically—for a second, it looks like Stark’s hands are shaking.  Stark averts his face as soon as Bucky looks at him.  He carefully puts down the screwdriver, picks up another tool.

“Well, if you want someone you’ve got more history with…” Natasha’s saying now, and Bucky hears a new, teasing note in her tone as she continues, “... then how about Bucky?  I’ve seen you looking at him, too, and definitely more than once.”

Bucky feels a jolt go through his entire body.  The sudden movement makes the arm jerk against the pliers Stark is holding, almost knocks the things out of his hand—though Bucky’s only distantly aware of that.  His attention has narrowed to what’s going on in the kitchen, to Steve’s voice:

“What— _Bucky_?  You can’t mean—” Steve starts, sounding shocked, incredulous.  “That’s ridicu—Bucky likes _girls_.  And anyway, he’s… he’s my best friend.”

“So?”  Natasha’s voice is low, amused now, “That doesn’t sound like a deal breaker to me.  If anything it’s a bonus, a good place to—”

“Nat, seriously,” Steve interrupts in a rush, clearly adamant about setting her straight, “Bucky has always been a—a ladies man.  He doesn’t— _we_ don’t see each other that way.  I love him, of course, but… not like that…” Steve’s voice trails off.

Bucky hears a low creaking sound, close.  He looks down.  The metal hand is gripping the edge of the worktable hard enough to dent the surface.  Bucky carefully relaxes the fingers.  He glances over at Stark again, mechanically, waits for the requisite complaint.  His chest feels hollow.

But Stark isn’t paying attention to him.  He’s staring at the door as if he can see through it, as if his eyes can bore through the heavy wood.  Stark’s hands are still frozen above the arm, the pliers clenched tight in his right fist.  It looks like he’s forgotten Bucky is there.

“Ladies man, huh?” comes Natasha’s wry voice, breaking the silence.  She sounds thoughtful now, “Maybe I should introduce _him_ to some of the girls then, since clearly they’re not making any progress with you…”

“No— _don’t_ ,” Steve says, suddenly, loudly.  A brief, heavy pause, then Steve’s voice continues in an unhappy rush.  “Sorry, I just mean—I don’t know if he should be in a relationship right now.  There’s—there’s still a lot going on with him, a ton of stuff he has to work through before… you know.  And Bucky’s still…” he trails off again, sounding strained, flustered.

The hollowness in Bucky’s chest is spreading now—it’s invading his belly, his throat, the inside of his head.  He can hear all the possible endings of Steve’s sentence echoing around the emptiness, around the workshop and the area outside, silent, unspoken, but still clear to everyone:  _Bucky’s still broken_ , he hears Steve say, or, _he’s still dangerous_ , or, _still unforgiven_.

“Barnes,” Stark whispers from beside him.  Bucky realizes that he’s closed both hands into fists, that he’s pulled his arms close to his body—away from Stark.  He forces himself to relax, to unclench, to give Stark access again.  He doesn’t look at him, though, and he stops listening to the conversation outside. 

 _Immaterial_ , he thinks. 

It’s not like they’re saying anything Bucky doesn’t already know.  He doesn’t have any reason to be upset.  If anything, Steve is being kind.  Bucky knows he’s not worthy of Steve—of anyone.  Steve could have said a lot more about him and it would all be true.

Bucky feels Stark’s eyes on him, and it seems for a second like he might say something.  But he stays quiet.  Bucky lowers his own gaze to the floor and tries to distract himself with the faint sensations on the arm:  the points of pressure, the tiny vibrations that run up his shoulder as Stark goes back to working on the whirring plates, his head ducked down again.

Against his will, Bucky starts to think about what it would be like to see Steve _with_ someone… in that way.  He thinks about how it would feel to see Steve kissing someone.  A man, maybe.  He imagines Steve’s warm, solid hands on someone else’s body.  He damps down the heavy, sore feeling in his throat, the wrenching ache in his chest. 

Bucky would be happy for him, he tells himself.  Steve has made so many sacrifices in his life—so many for Bucky, alone.  He deserves to be happy.  He deserves everything.

It takes Bucky a second to realize that Stark’s hands have gone still again.  When he glances over, Stark’s face is a gray mask—his eyes are riveted to the door again.  Bucky follows his gaze, listens.  The voices are moving out of the kitchen now, heading back down the hallway.

“You’re blind if you don’t see that he’s crazy for you,” Natasha is saying.  Stark lets out a harsh, raspy breath.  It’s loud enough that Steve might hear it outside, and Bucky freezes—but Steve is too focused on his own conversation.

“Tony, really?” he’s saying, sounding interested, pleased.  “I thought he was just flirting on autopilot, the way he does with everyone.  You really think he’s interested in me?”

“God, you really are hopeless,” Natasha says, laughing.  Then she lowers her voice, continues more gently, “I thought you knew—that you were holding him off on purpose.”

“No, I—I had no idea,” Steve says.  He’s almost out of earshot now, they’ve just turned down the hallway that leads to the elevators.  “Anyway, are you sure he’s not with someone right now?  Wasn’t Bruce saying something about his crazy rebound after Pepper left?”

Natasha’s words are masked by the sound of their footsteps clattering down the short stairway to the landing, but Steve’s reply comes through clearly before he’s cut off by the closing elevator doors:

“Well, if you’re right, maybe I’ll talk to him,” he says slowly, his voice warming as he talks.  “Tony’s had a tough year, too.  Maybe… maybe we both deserve a win, for once—”

Bucky hears the soft ding of the metal doors closing, then nothing more.

The image slides into his head, unwanted, unbidden:  he sees Steve kissing Stark, sees Steve’s warm, solid hands sliding down Stark’s body.  Bucky thinks about the sounds Stark would make, thinks about how he’d push into Steve’s touch—instead of flinch away from him, the way he does from Bucky.  He thinks about how Steve would smile, about how his blue eyes would shine at Stark with joy, with pleasure.

Bucky pushes away the vicious, twisting feeling in his gut.  He breathes, tries to relax. 

But he can’t bring himself to look over to where Stark is still standing frozen beside him.  The arm lies quiet, forgotten, between them.  The metal fingers are clenched tight again.

Bucky thinks about what Stark will do, will say if Steve does… go to him with this.  Stark’s eyes follow Steve all the time, Steve pulls at him like a magnet.  Bucky knows how it feels.  If _Stark_ is who Steve wants, if he can make Steve happy, then…

Bucky fights the strangling ache in his throat.  He tries to open his mouth to say something, to tell Stark that he should just go ahead and—

But… Bucky can already hear Stark’s response in his head, the voice seething, bitter:  _What the fuck can I possibly do about it, Barnes?  You think I should ask Steve out, make a move?  Catch a matinee and an early dinner, maybe?  Then give him a goodnight peck on the cheek before I hurry home to give_ you _your nightly fuck?_

Bucky swallows.  That’s the problem, he thinks hollowly.  Steve has always been the link between them—and the barrier, the wall.  When he finally looks over, Stark is staring back at him.

Stark’s gaze is unguarded for once, a mirror of Bucky’s own misery:  Bucky sees the same pity, the same shame reflected in Stark’s wide eyes—and the same burning resentment.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Here be monsters._

Bucky feels jittery, edgy for the rest of the day and into the evening.

Stark had been agitated when he left the utility room earlier.  He’d barely managed to screw the last few rivets onto the arm with shaky hands before roughly shouldering past Bucky and out the door before Bucky could even check the fix. 

Bucky remembers the anger, the bitterness in Stark’s eyes, wonders if he’s cooled down by now.  Probably not.  Stark likes to clutch at his hurts, his grudges, likes to let them grow. 

Bucky thinks about putting off the reset—everything in him wants to.  But the sun has barely gone down and he’s already feeling the twinge at his temples, the looming void at the edge of his mind. 

Nothing is worse than the emptiness, he tells himself.

He gets to the penthouse a good hour earlier than usual:  plenty of time to get prepped and calm himself the fuck down before Stark is due to stumble in, but—

When Bucky slips into the master suite, Stark is already there.  Waiting for him.

Stark is sprawled out in the middle of the wide bed, completely naked, half-propped up on pillows with a steely, vacant expression on his face.  He’s… already hard.  He’s stroking his cock—slow, steady pulls—and staring back at Bucky with bloodshot eyes.

Bucky feels himself stiffen, feels his heartrate pick up.  He can smell the alcohol emanating from Stark’s breath—his goddamn _pores_ —all the way from where Bucky’s standing, still frozen, by the door.  And—there’s a hint of another, more aberrant smell in the air:  a harsh, chemical tang that Bucky can’t place. 

When he slides his gaze away from Stark, jumpy, Bucky sees the whiskey glass tossed haphazardly onto the sheets.  He sees the empty bottle sitting on the bedside table.  Then his eyes catch on the other thing there:  a syringe, used, with just a trace of a sickly green-blue liquid left in the tube.  It’s the source of the chemical smell.  Bucky feels his stomach sink.

“What’s the problem, Barnes?” Stark asks then, his slurred voice breaking the ringing silence in Bucky’s ears.  “Aren’t you happy to see me?  Look, I even _prepped myself_ for you.”  Stark throws his hands to his sides, thrusts up his hips.  Bucky feels himself flinch at the aggression in the tone, the crude gesture—but Stark only grins at him for a second, mean and mirthless, then goes back to stroking his cock.

What the fuck had Stark injected himself with?  Bucky’s never seen him use anything harder than alcohol in the months they’d been fucking.  He feels an icy tendril of apprehension run down his spine…  It’s impossible to know how a handler will act—what he might want—under the influence of drugs.  None of the previous expectations, the hard-learned patterns, apply. 

 _Recalibration required_ , he thinks.  Bucky can’t help his eyes flicking toward the syringe again.

Stark follows his gaze, dark eyes narrowing when he catches sight of what Bucky is looking at.

“Yeah, I broke out the good drugs for you tonight, big guy,” Stark says.  He leans over the bed to grab the near-empty syringe.  As Bucky watches, Stark lifts it up to his eyes with an unsteady hand and swirls it around in front of his face, as if checking the dregs.  Then he opens his mouth and squirts the last two or three drops straight into his mouth, before tossing the thing off the far side of the bed.  He throws his head back on the pillows and goes back to pumping his cock—

“Jesus, that’s some good shit,” he says to the ceiling, “I haven’t been this horny and fucked up at the same time since…”  Stark lifts his head to look at Bucky, twists up the corner of his mouth.  “Well, not since I met you, anyway.”  The smirk doesn’t reach his dull, hard eyes. 

“Stark, what did you—?” Bucky hears himself start to ask.  His own voice sounds thin, thready to his ears—insubstantial in the face of Stark’s barely veiled venom, the resentment in his eyes.  Bucky had expected that Stark would probably still be upset about this afternoon, he’d been prepared for some… _difficulty_ , but—

“What, did you want some?” Stark cuts in.  “Too bad—that’s all I had.  It’s experimental and classified as fuck.  I had to break DARPA-level security to find it in Cho’s research files, and you don’t even want to know what I did to smuggle it out.  But the usual stuff’s not doing fuck all for me anymore, so desperate times and all that—” he pauses to smirk again at Bucky—or maybe it’s a sneer—before finishing in a low, cloying tone, “and baby, you’re worth it.”

The incongruity of the words hit Bucky like a slap.  He finds himself backing up a step, agitated, before he can stop himself.  His whole body feels tight, fluttery now.  The rising unease is heating the back of his neck, starting to rush in his ears. 

He doesn’t know why; Stark hasn’t touched him.  He’s not even close. 

“It’s a little late to be pulling the coy act now, isn’t it?” Stark asks, his eyes narrowing with irritation at Bucky’s pathetic, reflexive retreat—and Bucky suddenly hears another voice in his head, harsh and mocking:  _What, you getting shy on me all of sudden?  Don’t you run away from me now, slut._

Bucky shoves the voice away, frantically, wildly.  Stark isn’t a handler—he isn’t going to hurt him. 

And anyway… it’s a pointless line of thought.  If Stark _has_ gotten himself fucked up enough on whatever he’d taken—enough to want to hurt, to inflict pain in a way he’s never done before—Bucky will let him.  He doesn’t have a choice.

“Or are you just not feeling _up_ to it tonight?” Stark is saying.  “No need to get your panties in a bunch over that, Barnes.  It happens to the best of us—and you know I’m always prepared.” 

Bucky looks up in time to catch the grin, razor-sharp and discordant under Stark’s hard, angry eyes.  Then Stark leans over to rifle in the drawer on the far side of the bed before pulling up and hurling something—a handful of small, silvery things—in Bucky’s direction.

They flutter to the ground between him and the bed, and Bucky glances down just long enough to see small blue pills encased in foil and plastic.  He immediately jerks his eyes back up to Stark, wary, waits to see what he’ll do next.  Stark’s mouth is still twisted into a vicious smirk.

“Go ahead,” Stark says, waving at the floor with his free hand, his eyes glued to Bucky’s face.  “Have at it—and there’s plenty more where that came from.  Hell, you can have the whole fucking shipment.  I like this new shit better, myself,” he finishes, showing teeth and jerking up, emphatically, at his cock again.

Bucky flicks his eyes away, down.  He concentrates on slowing down his breathing, relaxing his body, making himself look amenable, malleable.  It’s the best way to mollify an angry handler.  And anyway—Bucky still doesn’t understand why he’s feeling so upset.  Even at his _worst_ , Stark isn’t going to do anything he hasn’t endured a hundred, a thousand times before—

Stark is still staring back at him.  He looks… expectant, like he’s waiting for something.  Bucky lowers his gaze again, wishes Stark would just tell him what to do.  Does he really expect him to take the pills?  Stark knows they won’t have any effect on him.

“What do you want?” Bucky asks finally, miserably, when he can’t stand the silence anymore, when it feels like the blaze of Stark’s displeasure is flaying at his skin, coming at him through the air like a whip.  He fights the sudden urge to drop down to his knees.  Stark is _not_ a handler.  He gestures helplessly at the pills scattered on the ground, “Do you want me to—”

“Just get your fucking clothes off and get on the bed already.”  Stark’s voice is still steely, harsh under a thin veneer of control—but at least he’s finally given a clear instruction.  “We don’t want to waste the first non-coerced boner I’ve ever managed to raise for you, do we?”

Bucky swallows, obeys.

His body feels slow, his fingers thick and clumsy as he strips off his shirt, his pants, his underwear.  The sleeve of his t-shirt gets caught on one of the edges of plate on the metal arm, and Bucky has to yank at it awkwardly a few times before it comes loose.  He hears Stark’s huff of irritation.  Bucky tries to hurry—but the new rush of anxiety only makes him fumble more.

When he’s finally undressed, Bucky climbs onto the bed and lies down:  on his back, the way Stark likes.  He keeps his breathing even, doesn’t tense, doesn’t clench his fingers on the bedspread at his sides.  He doesn’t think about how he hadn’t prepped himself before coming here tonight.  He’d come early, a good hour before Stark was due, plenty of time to—

Stark pushes up and moves over him. 

Bucky spreads, accommodates, makes room for Stark between his thighs.  When he feels Stark’s hand on his knee, Bucky pulls up his leg immediately, helpfully.  He looks at the slanted penthouse ceiling and waits for Stark’s cock to push into him, dry.  It won’t hurt too badly after the first minute or so, he reminds himself, trying to keep the panic at bay—after that, blood always makes things smoother.  And anyway, Stark is fussy, finicky.  He’ll probably give in and use the lube to protect his own delicate skin long before Bucky tears—

But it’s not Stark’s cock Bucky feels at his hole—it’s fingers, slippery with lube. 

Bucky lets out a shaky breath.  He pushes out against Stark’s fingers, carefully, gratefully.

Stark is focused on the task.  He doesn’t look up as he drives his fingers into Bucky, stretching and slicking him.  His head is turned so Bucky can’t read his face—but there’s a tightness to his jaw, a barely restrained roughness to the fingers pushing at Bucky’s skin that doesn’t bode well.

Bucky had known tonight’s session wouldn’t be easy, that Stark wouldn’t be happy with him after what had happened this afternoon, what they’d overheard… but _this_ level of agitation was—unanticipated.

He swallows, tries to damp down the sick feeling at the back of his throat as the memory of Steve’s bright, hopeful voice slides into his mind, unbidden:  _Tony, really?  I thought he was just flirting on autopilot.  You really think he’s interested in me?_   It’s fucking strange how the thought of it still feels like a knife twisting in Bucky’s gut, even right now—

 _Irrelevant_ , he thinks furiously.  _Counterproductive_.  He looks at the ceiling and tries to focus on making his muscles relax, slacken, open for Stark.  It seems to be taking a lot longer than usual.

After a while Bucky remembers himself and starts to reach for his own cock—to get himself hard, the way he’s supposed to—but Stark knocks his hand out of the way.  Bucky sees another flash of movement from the corner of his eye:  it’s just enough warning to keep him from jerking back when he feels a hand close over his cock.  Stark doesn’t like it when he flinches.

The strangeness of feeling Stark’s hand on his cock is enough to keep the anxiety at bay for a few more breaths.  Stark has never touched him like this before, has never laid a hand on him that he didn’t absolutely have to.  Bucky concentrates on keeping still, on pushing away the new thread of alarm that’s starting to coil in his gut.

It’s not long before Bucky’s cock starts to harden under Stark’s steady, relentless strokes.  It feels… wrong, somehow—like something _shameful_ for both of them.  But that doesn’t make any sense.  Stark can do anything he wants, he’s the handl—he’s allowed.

Bucky presses his flesh hand flat against the mattress, thinks about nothing.  His left hand is still holding his leg up, holding himself spread for Stark.  He can feel the metal fingers digging into the flesh of his thigh.  It’s a good pain though, helpful.  It gives Bucky something to focus on other than the slick, invasive fingers in his hole, the rough jerks at his cock that are starting to feel like Stark is trying to rip something out of him that he doesn’t want to give. 

Bucky shoves the thought away.  It doesn’t make any sense:  Stark can have anything he wants.

“Turn over,” Stark orders abruptly, pulling his fingers out.

Bucky startles at the unexpected sound, then darts his eyes away, nervous, when he sees Stark’s jaw tighten in irritation.  He rolls over onto his stomach—tries not to think about how strange it is for Stark to want to fuck him in this position.  Stark usually likes to keep Bucky’s face in his line of sight, doesn’t like looking at the ugliness of his back.  It’s yet another anomaly.  Bucky can already feel himself tightening up, nervous again, after all the stretching.  Stark’s not going to be happy about that, either.

Bucky presses his face into the pillow, tries to push away his agitation.  He starts to spread his legs—

“No,” Stark says, terse, “On your hands and knees.” 

Bucky woodenly pulls his knees under him, straightens out his arms, lowers his head.

When Stark finally presses into him, it doesn’t hurt.  It’s not painful at all.  Stark had taken his time with the prep and Bucky’s body is ready for him—his absurd, illogical tensing at the end notwithstanding.  He feels nothing more than the stretch, the slight burn as his body adjusts to the size of Stark’s cock. 

It’s nothing unusual, _nothing_ compared to what the Asset has endured before. 

After a while Stark’s fingers start to dig into Bucky’s hips, pulling him back in time with his thrusts.  Bucky shifts his knees apart a bit more, pushes back to match the rhythm.  Stark is silent above him.  All Bucky can hear is the slick sounds of their bodies meeting, the rasp of Stark’s breath as he drives himself into Bucky steadily, forcefully—but that’s nothing unfamiliar.  Stark never talks while he’s fucking him.

Bucky studies the pale bedspread under him. He focuses on keeping his own breathing even, his body pliant. 

He doesn’t understand where this distress is coming from.  Stark is only doing what Bucky needs him to do, what he’s been doing for Bucky for months now.  He doesn’t understand this new tightness in his chest, this roiling nausea in his gut, this blanketing _wrongness_ in his head. 

He doesn’t understand why his vision is starting to blur.

When Stark drives in roughly, one last time, gasping, when Bucky feels him come—it’s nothing unusual, nothing unexpected.  Bucky is used to Stark’s come coating his insides by now—he wants it, he needs it.

He doesn’t understand why it should feel different… _dirty_ , somehow, this time.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This follows directly from the last scene and is equally awful. Actually, no--probably safer to say it's considerably worse. Brace yourselves._

When it’s finally over, when Stark finally pulls out, Bucky carefully lowers himself flat onto his stomach. 

He curls his arms around the pillow and pushes his face into it, tries to wipe off the wetness as inconspicuously as he can.  Fuck only knows what Stark will do if he sees tears on Bucky’s face.  He’d never been told—Stark never tells him anything—but Bucky’s pretty sure crying isn’t allowed. 

He’s being fucking stupid, anyway.  It hadn’t even hurt.

Bucky waits quietly for Stark to get up and head to the bathroom like he always does.  But long minutes pass and Stark doesn’t make any move to leave the bed. 

Finally, Bucky lifts his head, looks over:  Stark is still lying on his back next to Bucky, still breathing heavily.  Bucky warily slides his eyes down Stark’s body.  He feels himself freeze, tense again when he catches sight of Stark’s cock.  It’s still stiff and red.  The orgasm hadn’t softened it at all.

A new coil of dread starts to settle in the pit of Bucky’s stomach, sick and heavy.  What _the fuck_ had been in that syringe?  What if… what if Stark isn’t done with him?  But that doesn’t make any sense—Stark never wants anything from him.  He doesn’t like it when Bucky touches him, or even looks at him.

“Can—can I go now?” Bucky asks finally, hating the way his voice catches in his throat.  He watches as Stark’s jaw tightens at Bucky’s words—but there’s no other response.  Bucky can hear the rushing in his ears, can feel the weird, distant sensation in his gut again.  He waits another beat, but when Stark still doesn’t say anything, Bucky slowly, cautiously starts to push himself up on his arms—

He halts his movement instantly when he feels the heavy, restraining hand land on the back of his thigh—high, right under the curve of his ass.  Bucky lowers himself down on the bed again, wary, turns his head back to look.  Stark is watching Bucky, his expression rigid. 

Bucky deliberately relaxes his shoulders, lowers his eyes.  His eyes catch on Stark’s still-hard cock again.  He swallows, nervous.  How much longer is this going to last—what more is Bucky going to have to endure tonight?  He feels the hand tighten on his thigh as Stark follows his gaze. 

“What happens if I say you _can’t_ go?” Stark asks, his voice dangerous, low.  “What if I decide I’m not done with you?  Will you roll over and spread for me again?”

Bucky’s breath catches.  He wishes, miserably, that he’d never asked Stark to look at his arm earlier—it hadn’t been anything incapacitating, just a little stiffness.  He should have just waited until the next scheduled maintenance.  None of this would be happening if Bucky had just _dealt_ with it, if they hadn’t been in that fucking room to overhear Steve.  This is all his own goddamn fault—

“ _Answer me_ ,” Stark grates out.  Bucky feels the fingers digging into his skin.

“Yes—you can fuck me again if you want,” Bucky hears himself say, shakily, unwillingly.  “Of course.”

Stark makes a harsh, grating sound at the back of his throat—a laugh, maybe.  He lets go of Bucky’s thigh.  “Of course,” he repeats, his voice tight—full of loathing.  “ _Of course_ I can.  I can do whatever the fuck I want, right?”  He pushes himself up on his elbow, suddenly, shifting his body closer to Bucky’s—and Bucky flinches back, reflexively, despite himself.  

Stark’s eyes are still unreadable, still glued to Bucky’s face, and Bucky finds himself nodding, jerkily, scared.  He knows it’s the wrong thing to do even as he does it, but he can’t think how else to respond.  He wishes Stark would stop asking questions and just do whatever he’s going to do, already.  He hates these fucking mind games, they never make any sense.

“Fine then—turn over,” Stark grits out, commanding.  “Lie on your back.”

Bucky rolls over, looks at the ceiling again, waits.  He feels Stark’s bloodshot gaze slide slowly down his neck, his chest, his belly.  It stops at his cock—his completely soft cock.  Stark flicks his eyes back up to Bucky’s face.

“I only ever ask for one fucking thing from you,” he says, finally.  “And you can’t even do _that_.”

Bucky stiffens, feels the dread pooling again.  He starts to reach for his own cock.  He’d completely forgotten, distracted by his own stupid, senseless anxiety while Stark was fucking him—fuck, how many mistakes is he going to make tonight?  That’s all he needs right now, to give Stark more fuel to stoke this black mood, on top of the fucking alcohol and drugs—

“No,” Stark snaps, and shoves Bucky’s hand away.  Then, before Bucky can respond—before he can _think_ —Stark suddenly looms over him, close, and—

Bucky stiffens, freezes with shock as Stark’s _mouth_ closes over his cock.

He feels his hands fist on the sheets at his sides.  He stares straight up, eyes wide, unseeing.  Bucky can’t remember the last time anyone had done this to him.  Had anyone, ever?  It doesn’t make any sense—Stark has never once even wanted _Bucky’s_ mouth on _him_ , and now he’s—

All of Bucky’s awareness narrows to the sensation:  the wetness, the encasing heat. 

Stark clearly knows what he’s doing.  He’s sucking and… doing something with his tongue against the underside of Bucky’s cock.  The sheer physical draw of it is sweeping, overpowering—it starts to pull a response from his body almost immediately.  His cock fills and hardens, starts to push against the back of Stark’s throat. 

But at the same time, the whole thing feels—aberrant.  Like a perversion, or… a punishment. 

Bucky clutches at the sheets, twists his neck away—he’s too stunned, scared to do anything else.   He doesn’t know if he’s trying to get away, or hold himself steady for more of the sensation Stark is ripping from his body.  Some deep, half-dead instinct tells him not to push up into Stark’s mouth the way his body wants to, desperately—he can’t afford another mistake tonight.

What does Stark _want_?  Does he expect Bucky to come in his mouth?  Is that allowed?  It doesn’t seem like something that would be, but Stark hadn’t said anything—he never does—and Bucky doesn’t have any basis for comparison for… for something like this.  He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to hold on.  Pretty soon it’s not going to be a question of what Stark wants—it’s going to be out of Bucky’s control.  Maybe he should say something, or try to pull out before the end… is _that_ allowed?

He’s already starting to feel the tingling, urgent tightness at the back of his balls.  Bucky turns his head away again, wretched, afraid, overwhelmed.  He hears a high, fraught sound—a whine.  It’s coming from him.  _Fuck_ —

But then suddenly—mercifully, appallingly—Stark pulls off.  Bucky rips his eyes open and stares up at nothing, gasping as the cool air hits his sensitive, wet skin.  He’d been _so_ close—

“So you can feel your cock after all, huh?” Stark says, then, cutting through Bucky’s shock, “Months of fucking and I wasn’t sure.”  Bucky swallows, looks down—Stark is still braced on his elbows between Bucky’s legs.  His lips are slick with spit, a little swollen.  His eyes are still hard as they stare up at Bucky.

“You want me to keep going?  Come in my mouth?” Stark continues, keeping his voice disturbingly light.  “You wanna close your eyes again and fuck my throat while you think about _Stev_ —” Stark cuts himself off before finishing the thought, his mouth twisting, bitter. 

Bucky’s stomach drops.

“Come on, _lover_ ,” Stark starts again, after a moment, “tell me what you want.”  Stark’s jaw is tight, his expression still dark, dangerous.  His gaze is still boring into Bucky.

Bucky darts his own eyes away.  He remembers, dully:  back when they started, Stark hadn’t liked to make eye contact.  That was only a few months ago, he thinks.  The ugly, sick feeling is still roiling in his gut—it hadn’t ever gone away.  He wishes Stark would stop talking, just fuck him again, something.  He wishes Stark would let him go.

“Tell me,” Stark says again, his voice uncompromising now.  _Start talking before I get bored and think of another way to get some noise out of you.  Think, you stupid fuck—_

“I—I don’t know,” Bucky hears himself stammer, shaky, weak.  “Whatever… I’ll do whatever you want.”  He feels a new wave of dread seeping through his veins as he sees the fury, the recrimination roll over Stark’s eyes, as his hands curl into angry fists on the sheets between Bucky’s legs.  _Fuck_ , what had he done wrong now?  He should have just kept his goddamn mouth shut—he never says the right thing, he _knows_ this—Stark had fucking _told_ him as much only a few weeks ago—

“Right.  _Of course_ ,” Stark spits, and he shoves himself back, away, until he’s kneeling up between Bucky’s legs.  His hands are clenched on his own thighs, tight and bloodless.  “Because I’m your fucking handler, right?  That’s all you see me as, all you’ve _ever_ seen me as.” 

Stark is practically shaking with fury now, and Bucky feels his own shoulders constrict in response, feels his breath starting to speed up.  Everything in him wants to pull away, to scrabble up the bed and put some distance between them.

“You’re—” Bucky starts, but can’t go on.  His voice is frozen, petrified along with the rest of him.  _You’re not a handler_ , he wants to say, or _you’re not making any sense_ , or _you’re scaring me_.  It doesn’t matter though, anyway, because Stark isn’t listening to him—

“So, anything I want, right?” he’s sneering, “It’s all ‘available for my use,’ _right_?”

Bucky looks away, panicky, looks back.  Stark’s unrelenting stare is still boring into him—rigid, expectant, adamant.  Bucky finally nods, miserably.  He doesn’t know what else to do.  He’s still lying on his back on the middle of the bed, naked, legs spread to accommodate Stark’s bulk between them.  His cock is lying bared on his belly, though the erection is starting to flag by now—and that realization sends a new wave of anxiety through him.  Stark had wanted him hard. 

Bucky feels scared, vulnerable, _exposed_ in a way he hasn’t since—

“Fine, then,” Stark spits out.  Then he swings forward, grabs Bucky’s arm—the flesh one—and yanks him up until Bucky’s half-sitting, half-sprawled on his side.  Then Stark flings himself on his back beside Bucky and—

He… pulls his own knees up.  Spreads his legs, presses his heels into the mattress.

Bucky feels his eyes go wide with shock, with alarm.

“Get over here,” Stark orders.  Bucky obeys, instantly, shakily, until he’s kneeling between Stark’s spread legs.  Their positions are reversed, all of a sudden.  It feels incongruous, disturbing.  Bucky doesn’t know what to do, what to think—

Stark says, “So let’s actually do what I want, for once, since you’re so fucking insistent on it.” 

His voice is low, almost toneless now.  His face is unreadable.  His dark eyes are boring into Bucky like drills.

He says, “See, I’m feeling a little fucked up in the head myself just now, so—” Stark’s heavy gaze glides down the length of Bucky’s body, back up again.

He says, “I want you to give _me_ a reset.”

Bucky feels the world tilt.  He feels his body start to jerk back, appalled—

But Stark is still talking, his dead eyes still piercing Bucky, holding him immobile.

“I want you to hold me down and fuck me,” he says, slowly, deliberately.  The loud, rushing sound is back in Bucky’s ears now, but Stark’s harsh voice stabs through the din like a bullet through flesh—

“And while you’re doing it,” Stark says, relentless, “I want you to keep your eyes on my face.  I want you to watch as I cringe and flinch underneath you—while I hate every second of it.  While I hate _you_.”  His voice picks up volume, vehemence, as he goes on.  “I want you to fuck me hard and get off on it, keep fucking me until you come inside me.”

“Stark—,” Bucky hears himself say, his voice high, desperate.  He doesn’t understand what’s happening— _what the fuck_ is Stark saying?  This is some kind of punishment, it must be—but Bucky still doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, it’s not fair, these _fucking_ mind games—

Stark ignores him.  He continues in the same leaden voice, as if Bucky hadn’t made a sound:  “After you come, I want you to make me stay.  Don’t let me leave—not yet.  I want you to force me to lie here.”  His eyes flick down to Bucky’s cock, then up again.  “I want you to make me get _myself_ hard.  Then I want you to watch me jerk myself against my will.  I want you to keep me on this bed until I come.  I want you to make me _rape myself_ that way.”

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky whispers, frantic now, terrified.  Stark can’t actually mean what he’s saying.  What does he mean, rape?  Bucky wants to leave.  He wants Stark to leave.  He’s starting to feel the panic, the stutters at the edges of his mind again—but it doesn’t make any sense, they’d just done the reset—

“And,” Stark smirks then, faint, deadly.  “Don’t worry—I won’t care that you’re fucking me against my will.  I won’t _mind_.”

The sheer wrongness of that cuts through Bucky’s horror—he balks, starts to scramble back even before he realizes what he’s doing.  But Stark lunges forward, grabs Bucky’s wrist with unyielding fingers.

“ _Stay_ ,” he orders, steely, implacable.  Bucky feels the fingers digging into his flesh, hard enough to bruise if he were anyone else.  “I told you what I want,” Stark says, “so fucking _do it_.”

Stark lets go, abruptly, and lowers himself down again.  He raises his gaze until he’s staring straight up, away from Bucky.  He spreads his legs further apart.

“Don’t make me ask again,” he says.

Bucky can picture exactly what Stark is looking at:  the high, gradual slope of the vaulted ceiling, the aesthetic beams, the fancy dimmed light fixtures.  He’s stared at them enough fucking times, himself. 

Stark had given a direct order—more than once.  Bucky can’t handle any more punishment tonight. 

Bucky starts to reach for the lube, wills his hand to stop trembling, wills away the nausea.  He slicks his fingers, reaches between Stark’s legs.  He thinks about nothing.

Stark flinches when Bucky first brushes against his hole, but then he breathes out, slowly, through his nose.  He visibly relaxes his muscles, pushes out against Bucky’s fingers.  The first finger slides in without too much resistance, then the second.  After a moment, Stark reaches to pull his right knee up, making more room for Bucky.  His cock is still hard, lying heavy against his belly.  It doesn’t look like Stark even notices it, though—if anything it looks painful, inflamed.

Bucky sees Stark’s fingers tighten convulsively around his knee as he takes the third finger.  Bucky can see the rapid heaving of his chest, his bloodless knuckles.  Stark is still staring blindly at the ceiling.  When Bucky tries twisting his fingers to loosen him, Stark winces, gasps a little.  Bucky freezes—he almost starts to pull his fingers back out, but—

“No,” Stark grits out, darts a look down to him then away again, “Don’t stop.”

It takes a while, but Stark’s body eventually starts to adjust.  His eyes are closed now, and he’s breathing steadily, carefully, through his nose.  He doesn’t object when Bucky pulls his fingers out this time.  He just bites his lip, then readjusts his grip on his knee, pulls his leg up a little higher, waiting.

Bucky reaches for the lube again, slicks up his own cock.  It takes some stroking to get himself hard enough for what’s next.  When he leans over Stark, he remembers the last time he’d tried this, mistakenly:  Stark had scrambled away, then.  He hadn’t wanted Bucky to touch him.  He—still doesn’t. 

This is all Bucky’s fault.  He’s turned Stark into this.

The first push takes some effort.  Despite all the stretching, Stark’s body is still reluctant, unwilling.  When he finally breaches the tight ring of muscle, Stark gasps, snaps his eyes open again. 

Bucky holds his breath, waits, _wills_ Stark to shove him off, to tell him to stop—but Stark doesn’t say anything, not then.  His dark eyes stare blindly up at Bucky—miserable, bleak. 

He doesn’t push Bucky away.  He doesn’t tighten up, he doesn’t clench.  He holds himself open, obliging, acquiescent, lets Bucky push into his unwilling body.  Bucky doesn’t think about how he must feel—how Bucky _knows_ it feels—when an unwanted cock presses into his hole, when a heavy body holds him down, makes him take it:  the frightening, trapped sensation, the claustrophobia, the invasion.

“Bet I know what you’re thinking, big guy,” Stark whispers, finally, just as Bucky pushes in another agonizing inch.  “Same as what _I_ always think when I’m doing this to you—right?”  His voice sounds vacant, tight with discomfort.  His eyes are wide, devastated as he looks up at Bucky from only inches away. 

Bucky feels another sick clench in his stomach, anticipating, dreading, even before Starks says what he says next:  “Bet you wish I were Steve.”

The words hit Bucky like a slap, like a gut punch. 

Bucky _recoils_ , yanks himself out of Stark’s body.  He feels the revulsion, the rage flood over him.  He wouldn’t ever—he’d never, _never_ do this to—it’s inconceivable that Bucky would hurt _Steve_ like this—

Stark pushes up on his elbows, starts to reach for Bucky again—he opens his mouth, he’s going to say something else, something appalling and awful and _true_.  The whole world washes over in red.  Bucky can’t listen to any more, he can’t do this, he _can’t_ —

Everything goes shaky, stuttery at the edges. 

Bucky isn’t exactly sure what happens next:  he feels his arm lifting, pulling back, his fist clenching.  He tastes the bile rising at the back of his throat.  He hears the rush of disturbed air, cool against his skin.  He hears the sick, jolting thud of flesh impacting flesh, the rough scrape of a stubbled jaw against his knuckles.  He sees the shock in the whites of Stark’s eyes—right before he falls back, his whole body swung around by the force of the blow.

 _Threat eliminated_ , he thinks jerkily, disjointedly.

**~**

When the world rights itself Bucky finds himself kneeling at the foot of the bed, his hands clenched on his own thighs, breathing hard. 

He looks up slowly, unwillingly.  He feels the blood flow away from his face as it hits him:  as the enormity—the _horror_ —of the last few seconds comes back to him with ice-cold clarity.

Stark is just starting to push himself up from where he’d landed after— _after_. 

As Bucky watches, frozen, Stark levers himself up on his elbow, his arm.  He turns to face Bucky, cradling the side of his face with his free hand.  Stark’s eyes are wide with alarm, with... _pain_.

Bucky feels the jittering panic roll over him again.  He feels the terror seep through him as his eyes lock on the injury:  the skin already red and swollen where it shows between Stark’s fingers.  How is it possible— _how could he have done this_?  It’s—it’s _unthinkable_.  Punishment for violence against a handler is a total wipe:  a restart, a clean slate.  It’s all going to be taken away from him.  He’s going to lose everything, everyone— _Steve_ —again.

As Bucky stares with horrified eyes, a new emotion slides over Stark’s face:  something aggrieved, brittle at the edges.  Stark lowers his hand from his cheek and his eyebrows draw together.  He opens his mouth—

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky hears himself croak, interrupting, begging.  He presses his forehead to the mattress, abject, terrified.  His whole body is shuddering, his mind is blank with fear—

“I’m—I’m sorry, please don’t—” the words are spewing out of his mouth, incoherent, out of control.  “I don’t know how—I don’t understand.  Please, _please_ don’t wipe me.  I’ll do anything.”  He can hear the despair in his voice, the terror, as he tries to think—what could possibly mollify Stark in the face of this—this latest offense, this _assault_ he’s committed?

“I’ll—I’ll _think_ anything, anything you want,” he pleads, desperate.  “I swear, I’ll think about _Steve_ while you’re fucking me, while I’m fucking you—whatever you want, anything, _please_.”

Stark says something—Bucky can’t hear his words through the panic.  There’s shift in the mattress.  Stark is moving toward him on the bed.  He feels a hand on his back—Bucky flinches, violently. 

Then everything seems to splinter, to fog over, to spiral out of sense.  All Bucky knows is stuttery fear, heavy dread—he waits for pain, for rough hands to grab him, for the ice to wash through his brain—

 _Wipe it_ , he hears, _there’s a glitch in the programming—clear it and start over_.

**~**

It takes a long time before Bucky is aware of the sound of Stark’s voice again:  “—Barnes, please listen to me— _fuck_ , please, I’m sorry,” he’s saying, his voice low, hoarse as if he’s been talking for a while, “I’m _so_ fucking sorry _—_ will you look at me, please, I didn’t mean—”

It’s still difficult to make sense of the words past the rushing in his ears, past the terror thrumming through his blood.  But—

Stark doesn’t sound mad.  His voice sounds shaky, upset, but… not _angry_ at Bucky, the way he should be.  He doesn’t sound like he’s about to order a wipe.

Bucky forces his body to stop trembling, his lungs to stop heaving.  He concentrates, tries to pull his scrambled mind back together, to focus on what he’s hearing.

“I’m so, _so_ sorry,” Stark is saying, his voice strained, “I’m an _unbelievable_ asshole, I’m—I’m a fucking _drunk_.  Please, I don’t—I don’t even know where that came from, I can’t fucking _believe_ —” Bucky hears him swallow, hard.  “That shit I took—I promise, I _swear_ I’ll never touch it again.  Please—Barnes, _please_ get up.”

Bucky lifts his head, slowly, shakily, turns it just enough so that he can see Stark. 

Stark looks—stricken.  He’s close to Bucky now, crouching right next to him on the bed.  His hands are gripping the sheets near his knees, like he’s trying to hold himself back from reaching.  His eyes are wide.  His face is completely white—except for the angry red mark across his left temple, his cheek.

“I—I _hit_ you,” Bucky whispers, still scared, ashamed.

“I fucking deserved it,” Stark says.  He sounds as miserable as Bucky feels.  “Jesus, the _things_ I deserve.”  Bucky sees his fingers clench again, convulsively on the sheets. 

 “You can—you can hit me again.”  Stark’s voice breaks. 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Bucky stays in the shower for a long time that night.

He stands under the fancy high-pressure jets and lets Stark’s inexhaustible supply of hot water pound over his skin until the huge bathroom is filled with blinding fog, until he starts to feel lightheaded from the steaming air.

After, Bucky uses the palm of his flesh hand to wipe a circle in the clouded mirror.  His face looks gaunt, drawn under the overheated flush.  His eyes look dead.

He shifts his gaze to his hand, still lying flat against the glass.  He remembers the feel of Stark’s skin under his knuckles.  Bucky feels sick again for a moment.  He hadn’t lost control like that since… since he got out.  Since the time he’d attacked Steve on the helicarrier.  Whatever last-gasp shred of sanity had made him punch with his right fist instead of the left… it had saved Stark’s life.  Saved Bucky.

When he finally comes out of the bathroom, he stops in his tracks.  Stark still hasn’t left—he hasn’t even put his clothes on.  He’s sitting at the edge of the bed on fresh sheets, leaning low over his elbows.  He looks up when he notices Bucky, then slides his gaze away immediately.

“Sorry,” Stark says, dully, to the floor.  “I’ll—I’ll go now.”

Bucky looks at him for a long moment, waiting for his own heart rate to slow down.  He takes in Stark’s haunted expression, the dark shadows under his eyes.  His tense, hunched form.

Stark’s body is actually not as substantial, as solid, as it seems at first.

Stark hides it the same way he hides his eyes:  behind a carefully constructed bulwark of arrogance and showy clothes and expansive, dramatic gestures—or behind a suit of armor.  It’s strange that Bucky has never really _noticed_ Stark’s body before, under the bristling, behind the bruises.  It’s probably because Bucky mostly doesn’t think about Stark unless he absolutely has to.  He… makes it a point not to.

Without the Iron Man suit, with all his defenses stripped away, Stark is physically much smaller than Bucky.  His frame is leaner, his bones more breakable.

“Stay,” Bucky hears himself say.  His voice comes out soft:  like a plea, or—a pardon, maybe. 

Stark huge, shadowed eyes dart back up, wary.  Bucky watches as series of unknowable emotions flit over Stark’s face, in quick succession, before he looks away again.

“Alright,” is all he says.

**~**

Neither of them talks again for a long time. 

Bucky goes around to his side of the bed, climbs under the covers.  He goes through his usual ritual of relaxing one muscle at a time until his whole body is finally loose—it takes a lot longer than usual.  He feels the mattress shift a few times as Stark settles himself.  Then everything is still, and after a while Bucky thinks Stark has fallen asleep.

It startles him a little when the voice drifts up at him out of the darkness, quiet, adamant:

“I meant what I said earlier,” says Stark.  “I’ll never touch that stuff again.  I swear.”

Bucky curls onto his side, his back to Stark.  When he looks down, he can see the city nightscape.  The windows can be made opaque to shut out the blinking lights, but Bucky hardly ever bothers to do it—he likes looking out over the city.  He likes imagining all the normal lives the people out there could be living.

“I know you were upset about… about what we heard,” Bucky says, finally, “And—I’m sorry.  I—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Stark cuts him off.  “Don’t you apologize, don’t you dare make excuses for _my_ fucking—”  He stops.  Bucky hears him take a deep breath, swallow hard.  “Anyway, that’s not what—” 

Another long pause.  When Stark finally starts talking again, his is voice low, almost toneless.

“After I fixed your arm, I went down to bioengineering,” he says.  “I spoke to McKay, the head of the department.  He’s discreet.  I went over your scans with him.”  There’s a slight movement in the mattress and when Stark speaks again, Bucky knows he’s turned his head toward the center of the bed.  Toward Bucky. 

“I was right,” Stark says.  His voice is soft now, reluctant.  “The implants have… shifted.  The transmitters that mess with the signal relays in your brain—they’re deeper than they were in your last scan, the one taken three months ago.  And—they’ve corroded, some.”

Bucky turns over onto his back, slowly.  He waits for Stark to explain.  Bucky hears him swallow again before continuing.

“It’s—it’s manageable,” Stark says, finally, “I can build you a mini-arc reactor to hold everything in place, to make sure nothing shifts any further.”  His voice drops a little, scornful.  “It’s nothing short of fucking idiotic that your so-called doctors didn’t think to check for something like this earlier.  Some of the components in your head are seventy goddamn years old…”

“You want to put another implant in me?” Bucky asks dully.

“The technology is good,” Stark says immediately. “Much better—smaller, too—than what I was using for the shrapnel in my chest.  We can place the reactor somewhere on the outside of your skull, just under your scalp.  It would be completely unnoticeable.”  He pauses for another second, then adds quietly, “It’s not possible to operate in that area of your brain.”

Stark falls silent again, expectantly, as if he’s waiting for Bucky to protest or something.  When he doesn’t say anything, Stark goes on slowly, unwillingly.

“The reactor can hold the implants in place, like I said,” he explains.  There’s another slight movement in the mattress, and Stark’s tired voice is speaking up to the ceiling now.  “But we can’t operate, and we can’t use the current reactor technology to move things back to where they were before they shifted—not without risking further damage.”  He goes quiet once more.

Bucky looks up at the ceiling, waits.

He’s not stupid.  He understands long before Stark opens his mouth again.  He gets, now, why Stark had been so upset—why he’d snapped.  The thing with Steve had only been part of it.

“We have to keep doing it,” Stark says, unnecessarily.  “No more than sixteen-hour intervals between sessions.”  Another long beat of silence.  Stark’s voice is bleak, toneless as he adds, “For… for the foreseeable future.”

Bucky keeps staring up with unseeing eyes.  _Forever_ , Stark means.

He imagines lying on this bed every night from now on.  He imagines spreading his legs every morning, every night.  He imagines making Stark fuck him twice a day for the rest of his life.  For the rest of Stark’s life. 

The thought shouldn’t make Bucky’s insides knot up; there’s no reason for the new lump of misery in his throat.  It’s not anything he wasn’t expecting.

He’d always known there’s no solution for him, no fix.  Only the resets.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says finally, into the darkness.

This time, Stark doesn’t object.

* * *

 

In the morning, Bucky wakes up feeling normal.  For the first half-second of haziness after sleep, he feels warm and comfortable in the familiar bed, on the familiar sheets.

Then he turns his head to see Stark lying on the far side of the bed, already awake and looking at him with quiet, watchful eyes.  Everything from last night floods back into Bucky’s mind in a lurching rush. 

Bucky feels his body stiffen, come instantly awake—feels all his senses honing on Stark, wary, alert.  Stark doesn’t move, but Bucky sees the way he shrinks a little, the way he blanches with guilt as he takes in Bucky’s reaction to the sight of him. 

Bucky breathes out slowly, makes himself relax.

Stark is lying on his belly, his arm folded under his right cheek.  It makes sense, because it’s clearly not possible for Stark to put any weight on the angry bruise on the left side of his face.  The entire area from Stark’s temple to the soft skin under his eye is discolored:  an ugly, puffy mess of red and purple.  Bucky can see the darker smudges where his individual knuckles had bit into fragile skin. 

The eye itself is half-swollen shut, but it still tracks Bucky cautiously for a long few seconds.  Then Stark looks away, laboriously turns over with a pained grunt.

“Unbunch your panties, Barnes,” he says after settling himself onto his back.  “I’ll live.  I’ve had worse.”

Bucky watches as Stark reaches up to prod at his face with tentative fingers, wincing.  Bucky thinks about saying _I’m sorry_ again, but what’s the point.  There’s no more fucking useless phrase in any language he knows. 

“Maybe I’ll come down with a mysterious illness that keeps me in bed for a couple days,” Stark is saying now,  “or Bruce might start in on a line of questioning that even _my_ incredibly deft and practiced maneuverings won’t be able to pry him away from…”

Stark’s shifting has pushed the sheets down his body, uncovering him down to the jut of his hipbones.  Bucky looks at him carefully.

There haven’t been as many… accidents in the past few weeks, last night notwithstanding.  Bucky’s body is growing accustomed to Stark’s proximity:  less likely to lash out unexpectedly, less likely to cause inadvertent damage.  But it still happens.  There are still a few fading bruises across Stark’s chest, one at his hip. 

Banner’s cautious concern will be the least of it, if anyone starts asking real questions.

“Maybe we should—take a break, then,” Bucky hears himself say, still looking at the purplish mark on Stark’s hip.  His voice sounds flat, distant to his own ears.  “To… to give you a few days to recover.” 

The heavy silence that follows makes Bucky pull his gaze back up, reluctantly, to meet Stark’s eyes.  He immediately looks away again when he sees the expression being aimed at him.

“I mean, I could find someone else to help,” Bucky continues, lamely, “in the meantime.  A professional… or something.  I know it’s—it’s hard on you, doing this for me all the time.” 

He tries not to think about how difficult, how uncomfortable it will be to force his body to accept a complete stranger again, after—after everything.  And it will probably have to be several different people.  It’s too dangerous to trust one person with more than a couple of resets.  That’s if he can even figure out how to find hookers that are willing to fuck a dead-eyed ex-assassin with a scarred-up body and a metal arm—

“Are you seriously giving me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech?” Stark cuts in, his voice scathing, incredulous.  “Jesus wept, that’s just goddamn perfect—your sad, pitiful, fucking _tragically_ misdirected self-blame is exactly the cherry we need to garnish this shit sundae steaming between us right now.”

Bucky stares at him.  After a moment, Stark looks away. 

Bucky is starting to recognize the slight tells in Stark’s face, the almost imperceptible twitches that indicate when an outburst has real meaning, or when something unintended slips out past Stark’s tenuous control.  He’s starting to recognize the flashes of regret, of shame, that wash over Stark’s eyes before he shutters his mistakes behind a screen of petulance or arrogance or scorn.

“Listen, Barnes,” Stark starts again, more quietly, not meeting Bucky’s eyes.  “If you’re sick of me after last night… after everything I did, everything I’ve done… then fine.  I sure as fuck can’t blame you.  God knows there’s no reason for you to forgive me—there’s no way I could ever make up for all the shit I’ve put you through.”  Stark falls silent for a long beat.

When he continues, his voice is harder:  “But don’t do _me_ any goddamn favors.  I said I’d do this, and I will.  No matter what you think of me, I’m not as big of a gaping asshole as to make you start all this over again with someone else, after everything we—.  After every fucking thing.”

Stark is staring directly up.  The position puts his face in profile, shows only the unmarked side to Bucky.  From this vantage, Stark looks a little tired, a little ragged, but otherwise completely normal.  Stark is good at showing people only as much as he wants them to see.

“Alright,” Bucky says.  He feels relieved, pathetically grateful more than anything else.  He doesn’t want to do the sessions with anyone else… no matter how shameful that is, no matter what it’s doing to Stark.

“Alright,” Stark echoes, after a beat.  He kicks the sheet off his body, takes a deep breath, steeling himself.

That’s right—it’s morning, Bucky thinks tiredly, watching him. 

Time for another fucking reset.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Bucky watches as Stark moves to get the lube out of the drawer on his side of the bed.  He looks at the familiar expanse of Stark’s back, the line of his spine, the way his muscles shift and tighten as he reaches.  Bucky turns away to get the tube he keeps in his own drawer. 

He slicks his fingers, reaches down to push them into himself.  He looks at the pale slant of the ceiling.  He listens to the sounds of Stark getting himself prepped.  It all feels… habitual by now.  Everything is easier within the steady confines of an established routine.  Bucky feels his body start to loosen.  It’s calming, the predictability, the regularity of it after—after the recent aberration.

By the time he’s stretched open, Bucky’s cock has started to harden a little, as usual.  He reaches for it, starts to stroke—at first out of mindless habit, then more determinedly as he remembers Stark’s accusation from last night.  No need to open that can of worms again.

He’s almost fully hard when another recollection slides into his mind, unbidden, visceral:  a sense memory of the warm, wet feel of Stark’s mouth closing around him.  Bucky had been too distracted by shock and nerves to get much out of it at the time, but now… now he remembers the sensation.  The way Stark had sucked, had lowered his head to take Bucky’s cock all the way down his throat.  Bucky speeds his hand up, minutely.  He remembers the hot clench of—

“Don’t,” Start says suddenly.  Bucky freezes, jolted out of his thoughts.  He turns his head, slowly.  Stark is looking back at him.  When Bucky’s eyes meet his, Stark’s expression immediately tightens, looks—contrite.  “I just mean—you don’t have to do that anymore.  I’m sorry I ever told you to.” 

Bucky carefully removes his hand from his cock, places it flat on the mattress next to him.  But that only makes Stark’s mouth twist more, unhappy.

“You don’t—you don’t have to stop, either,” he says, looking hassled now.  As if Bucky was the one giving _him_ confusing, contradicting instructions.  “Just… just do whatever you want to do.  Jerk off, don’t jerk off—it’s up to you, okay?”

Bucky nods.  He lifts his gaze to the ceiling again. 

He hears Stark curse under his breath.  Then the soft, slick sounds start up once more as Stark resumes the effort at getting himself hard.  Unsuccessfully, it sounds like.  Bucky thinks about reaching for his own cock again—but it seems stupid, pointless now. 

Anyway, Stark is going to need his hand any minute now.  He always makes a big deal about it, agonizes and wastes time trying to do it himself—when they both know it’ll never work when Stark’s as stressed as he is right now.  When they both know he’s eventually going to give in and ask. 

It’s frustrating; Bucky knows Stark doesn’t like being with him, doesn’t like being touched by him.  But he could probably learn to enjoy the physical sensation, at least, if he didn’t tie himself into knots about it—if he didn’t actively try to hate every second of it. 

Bucky is good with his hand.  There were endless field operations when space was at a premium, long boring hours spent crouched in dark, cramped places waiting for a target to show.  The Asset’s hand was always in high demand during missions like that.  He knows all kinds of tricks—he’s got seventy years of training on how to make it good, on how to give pleasure.  Bucky could give Stark that much, at least, if he would just let him.  It would be nice to give Stark _something_ , for fuck’s sake—all Bucky ever does is take.

Stark curses again and stops pulling his cock.  Bucky is already starting to turn toward him, to reach out, when—

“Promise me,” Stark says out of nowhere, “promise me you won’t let me do that again.”  Bucky looks at him, thrown—but Stark is still talking, “Promise me that you’ll _stop me_ the next time I go too far.  That you won’t let me… hurt you.”

Bucky sighs, pulls back his hand.  It figures that Stark would choose this moment to fixate on things guaranteed to instantly shrivel any hard-on he’s managed to raise. 

Bucky doesn’t want to think about all that right now—doesn’t want to think about it again, ever—but Stark has turned to look straight at him.  His cock is lying inert, forgotten on his belly.  He’s not going to let this go.

“I would have stopped you if you did anything to cause actual damage,” Bucky says, finally.  It’s probably the truth.  His gaze catches on the swollen, discolored injury on Stark’s face again.  Stark isn’t the one who needs to be stopped, anyway.

“Jesus, you know that’s not what I mean.”  Stark is pushing himself up on his arms, agitated now.  “You need to stop me way the hell before ‘actual damage,’ Barnes—you can’t trust me to draw those lines.  You have to stop me before I hurt you _at all_ , even a little—”

“But you didn’t hurt me,” Bucky interjects.  That's always been the problem, hasn't it?  He sits up, pulls his arms close to his body.  The metal is cold against the skin of his stomach, but Bucky’s used to that.  He feels restless, resentful, all of a sudden.  Why does Stark have to dredge all this up?  What’s the fucking point?

Pain sure as fuck isn’t any fun, but it’s—familiar.  Bucky is used to pain, knows how to meet it, how to mete it.  But what had happened last night, what Stark had done… none of it had been as simple as hurt. 

Stark’s face is already twisting, readying to launch into another extensive, pointless protest—but fuck that, Bucky is sick of talking in circles.  He’s sick of explaining simple things over and over again.  He knows it’s unfair, unreasonable, even as thinks it, but he can’t stop—not now, not when he’s still on edge from last night, when his nerves are fried and he hasn’t had a chance to think, to calm down, to remind himself of all the reasons why he needs to keep Stark happy—

“I don’t fucking _care_ if you hurt me,” Bucky snaps, “I’ve said that since the beginning, I don’t care if you believe me or not.  Anything you could possibly dream up, I’ve already been through a thousand times worse.  The things they did to my body,” he gestures down, irritated, sweeping over the scars and marks, “all this that shows—it’s only the surface shit.  You want to add anything, you’re fucking welcome to it.   I’ll even show you how.  Anything you could possibly inflict—it would barely even register.”

“I don’t want to _add_ to it, you _sociopath_ ,” Stark hisses, apparently having reached his limit on giving someone else a chance to talk, “I don’t want to hurt you, for the love of—have you heard a _single fucking word_ I’ve been saying?”  He’s leaning forward now, his whole body tensed and practically shaking with anger, his lip pulled back in a snarl. 

Bucky waits for the usual fear, the dread to hit at the sight of an angry handler—but it doesn’t, somehow.  And there’s something to that… something fleeting, elusive like a memory, and if Bucky had a second to think he’d be able to pin it down; but—

Stark is still yelling, incensed, “I want you to _stop me_ before I hurt you, not offer fucking suggestions on how to do it—I want to you to take some motherfucking _responsibility._ ”

Bucky jerks back at the word—even as he feels the anger coil tighter in his gut.  Where the fuck does Stark get off calling him irresponsible?  _Stark_ is the one who’s careless, lax, who leaves Bucky floundering, trying to figure things out for himself.  Stark is the one who doesn’t follow protocols, doesn’t—doesn’t do things the way they’re supposed to be done—

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he hears himself snarl.  “You ever stop to think that maybe if you did it right, if you—if you used me the way you’re supposed to, the way I’ve been fucking _telling you_ to—we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess?”  Bucky is shouting too now, loud, furious.  All Stark ever does is sing the same tired tune—all he does is lay more blame, try to wrench out more fucking _guilt_.

“The way I’m _supposed to_ —?  What the fuck are you even saying?”  Stark’s face is dark with fury, with disgust—he’s about to say more, but Bucky’s doesn’t let him—

“You think this is my first rodeo?  You’re a fucking idiot if you think I didn’t see last night coming.  It wouldn’t have happened at all if you’d just listened to me, if you—if you’d just let me _do_ something for you, if you didn’t bottle it all up until it was _too fucking late_.” 

Bucky can’t remember the last time he yelled at someone, the last time he was in a confrontation that didn’t involve fists and weapons and blood.  It feels—liberating.  Too good; heady the way doomed defiance always is.  It’s dangerous.  He should stop now, before it goes too far, but maybe it already has—

“I don’t _care_ if you hurt me, Stark,” he hears himself hiss, “I fucking _want_ you to.”  Stark pulls back at that—his face goes white—but Bucky’s not done.  “I want you to take your bullshit out on my body—hit me, hurt me, or… use my mouth, my cock, whatever the fuck.  It’s _better_ that way.”  None of that matters, anyway.

It’s the other stuff—the fucking mind games—that Bucky can’t handle.  That _scare_ him.  Better Stark beat him, bruise him—anything’s better than messing with his brain.  But Bucky doesn’t know how to say that, he doesn’t know how to make Stark understand—

It’s not fair, anyway.  Stark shouldn’t make him explain, shouldn’t make him deal with all this.  Bucky is offering him everything, freely—everything that had been yanked and ripped and torn out of the Asset’s screaming flesh—but Stark still wants _more_.  He can see that from the expression Stark’s leveling at him now, silent and accusing and, and _wronged_ , somehow. 

Bucky feels exhausted just thinking about it.

“Forget it,” he grits out, finally.  “You want me to stop you if something starts to twinge, fine, whatever—I’ll do it.”  It’s pointless, anyway—Stark’s not going to listen.  Stark will just keep doing things his own fucking way, like always.  Bucky drops his voice, bitter, resigned.  “You know I’ll do anything you want.”

Stark’s lip curls again, his expression acrid.

“Yeah, great, do that,” he spits, “Do the thing where you hide behind the Soldier, acting like you’re too cowed to protest even while you pull all my fucking strings, make me dance like a puppet to get exactly what you want out of me.” 

Bucky reels back, shocked—but Stark doesn’t stop when he’s on a roll, not before twisting the knife.

“Yeah, don’t think I’m not on to you about that—apparently I’m not as dumb as you think, huh?”  His voice is scathing, caustic as he continues, cutting like a laser past Bucky’s barriers:  “You like to cast me in that role, treat me like a HYDRA goon to make yourself feel better—but I’m no goddamn handler; _I_ don’t have anything to hide behind.  You run away, you get to be the fucking Asset—while I’m left here fucking the Asset.”

There’s a moment of ringing, reeling silence—Stark’s eyes are hard; his shoulders are heaving.

Then Bucky feels the rage course through him.  How _dare_ Stark say that, how dare he throw the Asset in his face, as if it were something Bucky had—had wanted, something that hadn’t been carved out of his flesh over years, decades of pain and horror and fear.  How _fucking dare_ he say it out loud, that the Asset is something Bucky wants even now, something that he—that he needs—

Bucky is leaning forward, baring his teeth—it’s the kind of threat that would make armed soldiers back away, even when he was naked and chained, but Stark doesn’t even flinch—

“You gonna hit me again?” Stark sneers, throwing his arms wide and showing his chest, open, unprotected.  “Go ahead, do it.  At least when you’re hitting me, it’s _you_ doing it, and not the fucking automaton.”

The words hit his skin like a slap, the truth of it burns through his blood like ice, cold and sharp—and Bucky is suddenly aware of his clenched fists, the way his muscles are bunched, tensed, primed to shut Stark up at any cost.  Again.

Stark’s chin is still jutted out, his jaw clenched, defiant—waiting for the pain, pushing for it.  His left eye is bloodshot and glinting under his swollen face.

Bucky stares at him for a long, frozen moment—then he feels his whole body deflate.  He sits back on his heels, pulls his arms close to himself, drops his head.  He feels a wave of exhaustion roll over him.  Jesus Christ.  Jesus fucking Christ.

**~**

“Goddammit, Barnes,” Stark says quietly, after a long while.  “I didn’t—I didn’t mean any of that.”

Bucky clenches his eyes shut, takes a deep breath, another.  When he finally looks up, he sees that Stark has pulled back, too.  His arms are wrapped around his midsection, protective.

“Yes you did,” Bucky says, feeling the surety of it settle in him even as he says the words.  Stark’s anger always cuts through his bullshit.  “You meant every word.”  He tilts his chin to ward off Stark’s next interruption.  “And—you’re right.”

Bucky’s not the Asset, he’s not the Soldier.  He doesn’t know what the fuck he is anymore behind all the lies, all the performances, all the different masks he puts on; for his friends, his doctors, for Steve, even for his own fucking self.

Stark doesn’t try to deny it again. 

“This is exactly why I try to keep my mouth shut around you,” he says finally, softly, running his hand over his face.  He looks as drained as Bucky feels. 

It figures that Stark is the only one who sees past all the facades.  He’s never tried to fit Bucky into an existing set of memories, of expectations—he’s always taken Bucky at face value, only ever taken as much as Bucky has given him.  Never more, never… enough.

“Don’t though,” Bucky says, tiredly.  Stark looks up.  “Don’t—hold it back.  Handler or Asset or whatever the fuck, it’s not a good idea.”  That startles a short, choked-off sound out of Stark—a laugh, maybe. 

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” he mutters.  He’s quiet for a minute, then, “Barnes—last night, that was all me, I don’t—it’s not on you to hold me back from being an asshole.  I shouldn’t have said any of that about you being responsible, that wasn’t fair.  I just—I let my mouth run, as usual.”

Bucky looks at him, at the weary cast of his face, the way his arms are crossed, held close to his body.  There’s something important, _true_ in what Stark saying—even if it’s not what he thinks it is.  The idea flutters again, elusive, just outside Bucky’s skull, ghosting at the edges.

“But I am,” Bucky says, finally.  “I _am_ responsible for this whole mess.  I pulled you into it, and—I fucked everything up.  For both of us.”  His eyes catch on the puffy blotch on Stark’s face again, the slump of his shoulders. 

He thinks of the way Stark’s eyes light up whenever he’s around Steve—and how he’s going to have to avoid him for days now, to hide the mess that Bucky has made.  Stark has never once put a mark on Bucky that he’s had to conceal.  Even after these months of fucking—even last night, stretched beyond his limit, at his _worst_ —Stark’s never even come close.

Bucky thinks of all the things that Stark shouldn’t have to do, all the things he hates doing—that he does anyway, because Bucky needs him to.

“I know you’re not my handler, Stark, I _know_ that.  But—” he feels the shame wash through him, “you’re all I have.”

Stark is quiet for a long time.  When Bucky finally lifts his head, Stark still has his arms wrapped around himself, his chin tucked down.  Bucky can’t read him—he’s not giving anything away.  Maybe Bucky should have just kept his mouth shut.

But when he finally talks, Stark doesn’t sound angry—or even bitter, for once.  He just sounds tired.

“Alright, Barnes,” he says.  He looks for a second like he’s about to say more, but he just sighs and sits back.  He pulls his knees up and folds his arms over them. 

Bucky drags his gaze away from him, slowly, wearily; it seems to take a lot of effort. They’ve been sitting here on the bed yelling at each other for fuck knows how long. It feels like hours, but when Bucky looks out the window he sees that the sun has only just finished rising. The clouds are wispy and bright pink across the pale morning sky.

**~**

The silence settles for a long time, and eventually Bucky feels the tension drain out of his body.  After a while he moves to lean back against the headboard.  Stark glances over at the shift in the mattress.

“Gotta hand it to you, Barnes,” he says, his voice low.  “You sure know how to pick them.”  Stark tilts his face to look at Bucky.  “Why did you choose me, anyway?  Pretty much anyone else on the planet would have been better.  Would have done better.”

Bucky drops his head back on the headboard, looks out over brightening cityscape.  If he listens carefully, he can hear the morning traffic starting up ninety floors down. 

“I figured you’d agree,” he says, finally, “that you’d keep your mouth shut about it, that you wouldn’t care all that much as long as I… kept you happy.” 

Bucky thinks about the way he’d seen Stark back then:  loud and lavishly self-indulgent.  Insecure.  Driven by fears and shameful secrets.  He continues without really meaning to:  “I guess you just seemed like a guy who might have the kind of kinks that—it’d be useful to have someone around who wouldn’t ever say no.”  From the corner of his eye, Bucky sees Stark draw in on himself again, angle his face away.  He feels a new rush of guilt.

“Fuck, Stark, I don’t know.  I wasn’t exactly in my right mind at the time.  I didn’t think about it too much.  I just knew I needed… maintenance, right away.  I was scared.  And you—you fix things.  You were the first person I thought of—” _After Steve_ , he doesn’t say. 

Bucky makes himself look over.  Stark has his arms crossed; he’s pushed back against the headboard the same as Bucky is.  His face has gone still again, unreadable.  But his eyes are locked on Bucky’s face, absorbed, almost—searching, somehow.   He flicks his gaze away when Bucky’s eyes meet his.

“Why did you agree?” Bucky asks, when it’s clear Stark isn’t going to say anything.

Stark is silent for a long time.  

Bucky starts to think he’s not going to answer at all, then, “I didn’t really stop to think, either,” Stark says.  “You had a problem you didn’t want everyone to know about.  I’ve—been there.  You were asking for help.  I know how hard that is.”  Stark pauses, rubs at his eyes. 

“I didn’t think it would be this complicated,” he continues, quietly, after a second.  “I didn’t think it would last this long.  I was sure I’d find some kind of solution, that I’d figure it out, and in the meantime, hey, better me dealing with the fallout than—” Stark cuts himself off.  He flicks his eyes over at Bucky, then away again, quick. 

“I didn’t—I didn’t _think_ , I just—” he stops.  He sighs, drops his hands to his sides.  “But, hey, road to hell and all that.”  Stark is staring into the distance now, but his eyes are flat, unseeing.

“Jesus, what a fucking pair we make,” he says, finally.

~

After a while, Stark pushes himself up, climbs out of the bed without saying anything more.  Bucky watches as he heads to the bathroom.  He’s walking slowly, like his whole body is stiff.  It makes Bucky want to wince in sympathy. 

He tries to focus on that—on a solution to that—rather than the heavy, hollow feeling in his chest at the thought of doing another reset, now, after—everything.  At the thought of making Stark do another reset.

Maybe they can do it with Bucky on top this time.  At least Stark wouldn’t have to move as much that way—less chance of him losing his hard-on being distracted by sore muscles.  It occurs to Bucky that they’ve never tried that position before.  Stark is always on top.  Probably he should have offered earlier, instead of always expecting Stark to do all the work.

He’s going offer this time.  If that doesn’t fly—if Stark doesn’t like it that way, then Bucky is going to offer something else:  his mouth, his cock, his tongue.  He’s going to keep offering until Stark accepts something.  And Bucky is going to explain that it’s from _him_ —that he’s not trying to hide behind the Asset this time.  He’s going to drive that through Stark’s thick skull if it kills him.

He waits until Stark comes back out, until he settles himself on his side of the bed again.

“Listen—” he starts, but he loses his nerve when Stark turns to face him.  He looks so—worn out.  Beat. 

Bucky’s gaze jumps down Stark’s body.  Maybe he should just do it, just lean down and take Stark’s cock into his mouth instead of _talking_ more, Jesus.  And he’s about to, he’s already started to push himself forward a little when—

Stark winces, realizing where Bucky is heading.  Bucky freezes.

“Sorry,” Stark says immediately, “Sorry, fuck.”  He drops down to lie his back, pulls his arm across his face.  Bucky watches as his other hand jerks a little toward his cock—like he’s thinking about touching it again.  Or like he wants to cover himself.

“I need a couple minutes, Barnes,” he says, his voice muffled, “maybe more than a couple.”

Bucky feels his stomach drop. 

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, trying to keep his tone even.  He’s still got maybe another five or six hours before the trigger starts pounding in his skull.  But if Stark means he wants to skip the reset altogether, if he wants Bucky to wait until tonight—

“No… just—just go get yourself a coffee or something,” Stark says, his face still hidden under his arm.  “I just need a little time to pull my shit together before—.  You know.”

“Alright,” Bucky says, shamefully relieved.  He slides slowly to the edge of the bed, pulls on his shirt, his pants. 

It won’t be the worst thing to get out of here for a while, to get his own thoughts together.  There hasn’t been a second to think since last night.  He’ll go out to the fancy kitchen, make himself a cup of Stark’s fancy coffee, sit on his fancy couch and—think.  Process.  And maybe figure out how to make things… better for Stark.  Or less fucking awful, anyway.

Bucky pulls open the door, starts to take a step forward, and—

He freezes.

 _Steve_ is standing there, startled blue eyes piercing Bucky’s.  His arm is raised, like he was about to knock.

For an endless second, there’s nothing except the slack, bewildered look on Steve’s face.  He’s staring at Bucky without comprehension, as if it’s beyond the scope of reality to find Bucky standing inside Stark’s bedroom.  It _is_ beyond the scope of his reality.  That’s where it was supposed to stay.

“Bucky, what—?” Steve starts.

Then Bucky feels time slow down, feels the world drop out from under him as Steve’s eyes slide past him, focus on the sight further inside the room.

And _this_ is the reason why Bucky had done all of it; it’s exactly why he and Stark had gone through all the shit they did.  It was all to keep this exact look off of Steve’s face, the one that’s dawning now, spreading across his features like a tragedy, like a nightmare—

Bucky feels himself stumble back a step, then two.  He knows what Steve is seeing.  He’s been looking at it himself—feeling sick over it—all morning.  Bucky knows exactly what’s making Steve’s jaw go slack with confusion, with alarm.  He already knows what’s making Steve’s shoulders bunch, his arms tense—but Bucky still can’t help turning to follow his gaze.

Stark’s face has gone pale under the swollen purple bruises.  His one eye that can still widen is rimmed with white.  He’s pushed himself up and he scrabbles at the sheet, pulls it up to cover himself—but it’s too late. 

Steve has seen the bruises, the scratches, the handprints across Stark’s hips and torso.  He sees the haggard, miserable line of Stark’s back.  He sees the awful, shameful mess that is the left side of his face.  He sees the panic in Stark’s eyes.

“Steve, wait—” Stark says jerkily, but Steve’s not listening.

Steve’s face is twisting with horror.  He pulls his eyes away from Stark.

“ _Bucky,_ _what the fuck_?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ETA 10/24/2016: AHHHH I'M SO SORRY. This has not been abandoned, I swear!! Things got kind of hectic for awhile, then I got sucked into some new projects, and then, and then, and then. ~~But I PROMISE this will be finished by the end of the year, so help me god.~~ Thanks so much to everyone who's been commenting/kudo-ing/cheerleading the effort!! I treasure every piece of feedback (and I'll respond to all your comments before posting the next chapter)._
> 
> _ETA 8/17/2017: Okay, so making undying promises to finish by a certain date were a bit premature. Sorry (again, ugh) folks!! I do plan on eventually getting back to this someday, but for now I'm on an indefinite hiatus from fandom. A HUGE thank you to everyone who's been leaving feedback & kudos in the meantime! It's still very much appreciated!!_
> 
> _In the meantime, you can check out my[other trashy fics](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=%22Dark%22+%7C%7C+%22HYDRA+Trash+Party%22+%7C%7C+%22HYDRA+Trash+Party+adjacent%22&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&commit=Sort+and+Filter&pseud_id=kaesaria&user_id=kaesaria) if you want. ;))_

**Author's Note:**

> Story title is from the song _Prison Sex_ by Tool.
> 
>  **All comments and kudos are cherished!** You can also discuss this story (or anything else) with me on [Tumblr](http://kaesaria.tumblr.com/) or [Imzy](https://www.imzy.com/kaesaria).
> 
> _ETA 08/02/2016: And now there's[gorgeous art](http://thefilthiestpiglet.tumblr.com/post/148288306478/drew-a-thing-for-kaesarias-come-round-full) (nsfw) for the brand scene in Chapter 4 by thefilthiestpiglet!!_


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